Cultural concept
Environmental justice
Erin Brockovich: The idea that every community, rich or poor, has the right to clean water and a safe environment, and to justice when it is harmed. Key question: Can the law protect people who have no power?
Promised Land: Who decides what happens to land and water when a struggling community is offered money for its resources? Key question: Is a promise of wealth worth an environmental risk?
Food, Inc.: How industrial agriculture affects farmers, workers, animals, consumers and the environment. Its sequel, Food, Inc. 2 (2023), looks at the same system fifteen years later. Key question: Who controls what we eat?
Super Size Me: How marketing, portion size and cheap calories shape eating habits, and how to judge evidence about health. Key question: Can one experiment prove something about everyone?
Film study 4Erin Brockovich
Environmental justice
Our centrepiece: a real case of groundwater pollution, a law firm, a $333 million settlement. Investigate, interview, negotiate, pitch.
Film study 5Promised Land
Environmental justice
A gas company, a farm town, a vote: fracking and the promise of wealth.
Film study 6Food, Inc.
Environmental justice, the food system
A documentary from the farm to the supermarket: who controls our food?
With its sequel, Food, Inc. 2 (2023): then and now.
Film study 7Super Size Me
Public health & consumer society
A famous fast-food experiment, and a lesson in how to judge evidence.
For the teacher: age ratings
- Erin Brockovich · R (language) · trailer and stills only
- Promised Land · R (language) · trailer and stills
- Food, Inc. · PG · documentary
- Food, Inc. 2 · UK 12A, US not rated · trailer and chosen extracts
- Super Size Me · PG-13 · documentary
Ratings are the US MPA ratings. Full guidance: mode d’emploi professeur.
Suggested progression
- Erin Brockovich (1re/Tle, B2): the concept through a real legal case; the law vocabulary.
- Promised Land (1re/Tle, B2): the same questions applied to energy; town-meeting role-play.
- Food, Inc. (2nde→Tle, B1→B2): the food system; documentary language.
- Super Size Me (2nde→Tle): health, media literacy, scientific method; final cross-film essay.
Compare the four films
| Erin Brockovich | Promised Land | Food, Inc. | Super Size Me | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Type | fiction based on a true story | fiction | documentary | first-person documentary |
| Resource at stake | groundwater | land, gas, water | food, farmland, animals | food, the body |
| Who faces the company? | a file clerk and a small law firm | a town, a teacher, an activist | farmers, a mother, consumers | one filmmaker |
| Weapon | evidence and the law | a public vote | information, the “vote” at the scanner | an experiment on himself |
| Critical point | real case, dramatised | attacked by the industry; a fiction | companies refused to speak | weak scientific method |
Sentence starters
- Both … and … show that…
- Unlike Erin, the people of McKinley…
- The documentaries persuade by…, whereas the fiction films…
Cross-film tasks
- Speed-pitch (90 s each): each group defends “its” film as the most important for the class to see.
- Panel discussion (10 min): Erin, Steve Butler, Michael Pollan and Morgan Spurlock (as characters / public figures) answer the question “Can one person change a system?”.
- Fact-check workshop: one claim per film; check it against an official source (EPA, FDA, Water Board).
Sentence starters
- Our film matters most because…
- What the four films have in common is…
- I would like to challenge…
- According to the EPA,…
Final essay (B2 · 250 to 300 words)
“The price of progress is always paid by someone.” Discuss, using at least two of the four films and one date from the shared timeline.
Sentence starters
- Throughout the twentieth century,…
- Take the case of Hinkley:…
- Similarly / By contrast,…
- Ultimately,…
Shared timeline
- 1906 Upton Sinclair publishes The Jungle; Congress passes the Pure Food and Drug Act and new federal meat safety laws.
- 1952 to 1966 PG&E discharges chromium 6 wastewater into unlined ponds at Hinkley, California.
- 1962 Rachel Carson publishes Silent Spring.
- 1969 22 June: the polluted Cuyahoga River catches fire in Cleveland, Ohio.
- 1970 22 April: first Earth Day. 2 December: the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is created. Clean Air Act.
- 1972 18 October: Congress overrides a presidential veto, the Clean Water Act becomes law.
- 1974 The Safe Drinking Water Act protects public drinking water.
- 1980 Superfund law (CERCLA) to clean up toxic waste sites.
- 1990 Nutrition labels become compulsory on most packaged foods.
- 1996 PG&E agrees to pay $333 million to Hinkley residents.
- 2000 Erin Brockovich.
- 2003 to 2004 Spurlock’s experiment; Super Size Me; McDonald’s phases out Super Size portions.
- 2005 The Energy Policy Act excludes most fracturing fluids from Safe Drinking Water Act injection rules.
- 2008 Marcellus Shale drilling boom in Pennsylvania; Food, Inc. premieres.
- 2010 Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act.
- 2011 FDA Food Safety Modernization Act.
- 2012 Promised Land.
- 2014 New York State announces a ban on high-volume fracking (17 December). Flint, Michigan, changes its water source: a lead crisis begins.
- 2016 The EPA concludes that fracking can impact drinking water resources under some circumstances.
- 2024 California’s new chromium 6 drinking-water limit (10 µg/L) takes effect on 1 October.
Shared vocabulary
| Law & justice | lawsuit · plaintiff · defendant · settlement · class action · evidence · liable · regulation · to sue |
|---|---|
| Water & pollution | groundwater · aquifer · contamination · toxic · plume · wastewater · well · cleanup |
| Energy | natural gas · shale · hydraulic fracturing (fracking) · drilling rights · lease · rig · royalties |
| Food & farming | agribusiness · feedlot · crop · corn · subsidy · organic · processed food · label · additive |
| Health | obesity · diet · calories · liver · cholesterol · side effect · public health · risk |
| Power & persuasion | corporation · lobby · whistleblower · activist · campaign · consumer · to raise awareness |
| Science & doubt | evidence · sample · control group · data · bias · reliable · to prove · to question |
Sentence starters
- The key word for this theme is… because…
- In both films, the word… applies to…
Share this theme
https://trame-lycee.netlify.app/films/environment.html
Created by Madame Carole Paoli Pompougnac.