Students use City of Ember and connected nonfiction texts to investigate how communities respond to challenges and how the UN Sustainable Development Goals can guide solutions for a better future. They work in teams to ask questions, research a self-selected issue, discuss ideas in collaborative structures such as a whole-class Socratic seminar, and create a digital group product in a medium that fits their message. Throughout the project, students strengthen reading, writing, speaking, listening, and research skills through individual writing tasks, team roles and goals, reflection checkpoints, and cycles of critique and revision using gallery walks, share-outs, and rubrics. The experience prepares students to communicate informed ideas clearly and responsibly to an authentic audience.

Students will analyze themes, character responses, and multimedia elements in City of Ember and connect those ideas to real-world sustainability challenges using evidence from both literary and nonfiction texts. They will conduct short research projects on a self-selected sustainability goal, integrate information from multiple sources, and develop clear written and oral products through planning, revising, editing, and reflection. Students will strengthen collaboration by using team roles, discussion routines, and shared goals to participate in seminars, gallery walks, and small-group critique with empathy and accountability. They will create a digital final product in a medium of their choice that presents a realistic idea for improving their community and communicates their thinking clearly with visuals, multimedia, and relevant supporting details.

Students will create ongoing products including reading response journals, theme-and-text evidence charts connecting City of Ember to selected sustainability goals, research note-catchers from multiple nonfiction sources, team planning documents with roles and goals, and short individual written reflections at key checkpoints. Mid-project, teams will produce discussion notes from a Socratic seminar, storyboard or prototype drafts, and revised plans based on rubric analysis, gallery walks, and small-group feedback. The final group product will be a digital project in a student-chosen format such as a slideshow, video, podcast, website, digital poster, or public service announcement that explains a community problem, connects it to a UN goal and themes from the novel, and proposes a realistic solution. Each student will also complete an individual polished writing piece that synthesizes research and literary analysis and supports the ideas presented in the group exhibition.

Begin with a simulated “Ember emergency” in which the classroom lights are dimmed, key supplies are limited, and teams must solve short challenges about water, food, energy, and communication to experience what happens when a community’s systems fail. Follow the simulation with a read-aloud excerpt from City of Ember and a gallery of images and short nonfiction texts about the UN Sustainable Development Goals, asking students to notice connections between the fictional city’s problems and real global challenges. Students then join a whole-class Socratic seminar around the question, “How can we design a better future for our community?” and create team rules, goals, and roles for the project. End with a brief written reflection in which each student identifies one issue they want to investigate and one way they can contribute to their group.

Host a digital showcase called “Better Futures from Ember,” where teams share their final products in a class website, slideshow gallery, or recorded presentation linked to the Sustainable Development Goal they studied. Invite families, other 5th grade classes, and community partners to view student podcasts, videos, digital posters, slide decks, essays, or artwork, and include a short live or recorded explanation of how evidence from City of Ember and nonfiction research shaped their ideas. Build in a virtual gallery walk with feedback forms so visitors can respond to each project, and have students reflect on how clearly they communicated their message and collaborated as a team. End with a brief celebration in which students recognize team roles, growth, and next steps for designing a better future in their own community.