Earthrise film featuring Apollo 8 astronauts Bill Anders, Frank Borman, and Jim Lovell directed by Emmanuel Vaughan-Lee

The climate crisis magnifies my respect for the free 29-minute film Earthrise, from the collection "Top 10 Films to Watch This Summer" noted by globalonenessproject.org Executive Director Cleary Vaughan-Lee as "[our] most-watched films used by teachers from this past school year."

For teachers, here is my community-building prompt after showing the film. Ask students "What have you learned from being on Earth today, in the past year, and in this lifetime?" Do this in a circle where, after writing for 10 to 30 minutes, each student around the circle gets a turn to "pass, delay, or respond," and no one is allowed to interrupt those who choose to share. After completing the circle, return to those who said "delay," and give each a chance to speak.

Below are quotes from the astronauts.

"In a hundred lunar distances where it's hardly going anywhere in space [Earth] is like a grain of sand. I got to thinking Is that really the center of the universe? [. . . .] You had better hope we land in the blue part. The target for the reentry was something like a mailslot if the mailman had to deliver your letter from 20,000 miles away. If we were too deep [in our calculations to return], we would burn up. [. . . .] [Viewing Earth from space] boundaries we have are really artificial ones. [. . . .] [People] really don't understand and realize what [they] have here until [they] leave it. [. . . .] When I hear people chanting that we ought to go on to Mars, I'm thinking [. . . .] why don't we get our act together here on Earth first, and go to Mars as human beings, not as jingoistic Americans or Chinese or Russians or Indians. Let's just do it as human beings. [. . . .] But at least for an instant in history, I believe that people looked upon themselves as citizens of the Earth."

The globalonenessproject.org film When a Town Runs Dry by Joris Debeij shows effects of climate change-magnified drought on a rural California farming town. Another good one is My Enemy, My Brother by Ann Shin which I used with the prompt "Write about a surprise ending." I wrote about the project's other films and resources in my January 27, 2018 post "Rivers and Stories" by Robert Hass, and global oneness project.