A free, unofficial lesson companion for teachers bringing the documentary Groundswell into and out of the classroom, mapped to GreenComp. Built for soil, food and sustainability teaching with students aged 11 to 16, it follows four themes the film returns to in every place it visits: Soil Is Alive, Water Follows Carbon, Diversity Over Monoculture, and Paying For Nature. Each one becomes ready-to-use classroom and field activities.
Every activity is mapped to the EU's GreenComp sustainability framework, with the full framework built in so you can search it, filter by area, and open any competence to see the knowledge, skills and attitudes behind it. Alongside the activities you will find the film's figures with notes on how to check them, screening notes, curriculum links and printable lesson sheets.
Streaming on Prime Video, and ready to adapt to your own students and setting.
The Groundswell Companion
Select, Classify, Prove
The Groundswell Companion
Groundswell is a feature documentary narrated by Demi Moore and Woody Harrelson, the third film in a trilogy about soil, streaming on Prime Video. It travels to eight places on five continents and returns to four levers: soil is alive, water follows carbon, diversity over monoculture, and paying for nature. This tool turns the film into lessons for students aged 11 to 16 and adult groups: what the film shows, the figures to test, and a classroom and a field activity for every case.
Built from the film itself (Big Picture Ranch, 2026), with every case mapped to GreenComp (JRC, 2022) and to the 169 SDG targets. Film details checked against the Festival de Cannes, Prime Video, Kiss the Ground and Common Sense Media, and figures checked against outside sources, on 7 and 8 October 2026.
4Levers
0Film Cases
0Activities
0SDG Targets
Read The LabelsTreat the film as evidence, not as a textbook. Items marked From The Film summarise what the film shows and says. Figure To Test marks a number the film reports, for students to check. 169to1 Lesson Design marks our activities and questions. 169to1 Mapping marks our own links to GreenComp and the SDGs.
Set Up For Your Class
Two choices tailor the tool. Your choice of learners changes the discussion questions and activity adaptations throughout. Adult Learners covers teachers, parents, colleagues and community groups, and matches page 002 of every lesson sheet. Your role suggests a first move.
Which Learners Will Take Part?
What Is Your Role?
What This Tool Brings Together
The Film
Groundswell, directed by Josh Tickell and Rebecca Harrell Tickell and narrated by Demi Moore and Woody Harrelson. It premiered as a Special Screening at the 79th Festival de Cannes (12 to 23 May 2026) and launched worldwide on Prime Video on 5 June 2026. It runs about 94 minutes and is rated PG.
Big Picture Ranch, 2026. Third film in the trilogy after Kiss the Ground and Common Ground.
GreenComp
The European sustainability competence framework: 12 competences in four areas. It names what learners should develop but not how to teach it. The film supplies real cases to practise on.
Bianchi, Pisiotis and Cabrera Giraldez, JRC, 2022.
The 169 SDG Targets
Every case is linked to the SDG targets it touches, and all 169 targets open an education snapshot with a question, a five-step activity and evidence of learning.
169to1 mapping. 169to1 is independent and has no UN affiliation.
Why GreenComp And The SDGs
The film's four levers do not sit in separate boxes. Each draws on more than one GreenComp area, and each case touches several SDG targets, most often under Zero Hunger, Life On Land, Clean Water and Climate Action. Tagging every case lets film work sit inside existing science, geography and citizenship planning. Select any chip to see the links.
Teacher's And Student's Notes
Two-page guides for running the tool with a class. Both are also on the Pack tab.
Terms Used In This Tool
The Film And Its Argument
The film opens with deep history and then makes a claim that surprises most students: carbon in the air is not the only reason the planet is heating. The way we treat land matters as much. Woody Harrelson admits audiences are tired of depressing climate films, and says this one is about a solution to many problems at once: food, and how changing the way we grow it could regenerate the world.
Four Stages In The Film's Story
1
A Stable ClimateA few degrees of warming after a colder time allowed farming, then cities, then civilisations.
2
The Power To Alter LandFossil energy gave us the power to reshape land. The film warns it may be our greatest weakness.
3
A Hot Frying PanTrees and plant cover removed, aquifers drained, drylands spreading. Fewer plants means hotter land.
4
An Age Of RegenerationLike the body, the Earth can heal, and the film argues it can begin with the soil.
From the film's opening. From The Film
Four Levers
Most of the film is what Harrelson calls a regeneration road trip through eight places. Rather than follow the route in order, this tool follows four levers the film returns to in every place, and ends with the film's turning point: a billion acres, and hope turned into a plan.
Key Term: Regenerative Agriculture
The film defines regenerative agriculture as a way of growing food that puts carbon into the ground and builds the soil. In practice it shows farmers keeping soil covered and undisturbed, growing many plants together rather than one, bringing animals onto the land, and avoiding synthetic pesticides and herbicides.
All four levers lead back to it. Living soil stores carbon, carbon holds water, diversity keeps the system resilient, and payment makes it spread. The word also appears on a growing number of food labels, so it is worth asking what it means each time it appears.
People In The Film
Figures To Test
Every number the tool uses, grouped by lever. Treat each as a claim to check against other sources, not a fact to memorise. The film is advocacy and gives few sources on screen, so some figures carry a check note drawn from outside sources.
Screening Notes
The film runs to about 94 minutes and is rated PG. Show it in full with older groups, or split it by lever across lessons, using the five parts below. Set one question before each part so students watch with a purpose, then pause and take answers. Preview Parts Two and Three: they include accounts of war from refugees, and a figure for farmer suicides in India. Common Sense Media rates the film for ages 10 and over.
Timeline
1
2020 And 2023Kiss the Ground and Common Ground, the first two films in the trilogy.
2
May 2026World premiere as a Special Screening at the 79th Festival de Cannes, held from 12 to 23 May.
3
5 June 2026Global launch on Prime Video. A free 45-minute educational cut was listed by Kiss the Ground as coming soon when checked on 7 October 2026.
Sources: Festival de Cannes; Prime Video press release; Kiss the Ground, 2026.
The Four Levers And The Turning Point
Open each lever to see what the film argues, where it appears in the film, the GreenComp areas it develops most and the cases that belong to it. Each has its own lesson sheet, matching the student worksheets.
Principles For Educators
Cases From The Film
Each case is one story from the film, summarised with the figures it reports, a question for your learners and two activities. Filter by lever or search a term.
Classroom And Field Activities
Every case has one activity for the classroom and one for outside it. Each shows what you need, the steps, an adaptation for your chosen learners and the evidence it produces. Add the case lesson to a Lesson Pack to print.
GreenComp Competences
GreenComp has 12 competences in four areas, all equally important. Select a competence to read what it means in plain English, see every case and activity in this tool that builds it, and the SDG targets where it leads.
Competence tags on cases and activities are 169to1 mapping, not an EU classification.
SDG Targets
All 169 SDG targets, grouped by goal. of them link directly or in support to a case in this tool. Open any target for its education snapshot: why it matters, the GreenComp competences it builds, a learning question, a five-step classroom activity, evidence of learning and the film cases that connect to it.
Direct link to a caseSupporting link
Target links, plain-English wording, competence mapping and snapshots are by 169to1, shared with the GreenComp Pulse. 169to1 is independent and has no UN affiliation.
Take Action
Routes for learners and educators to take the film beyond the classroom, and places to check the source material.
A Screening-To-Action Model
The whole tool reduces to five steps, which take a class from watching the film to acting on it.
1
WatchThe film, or one of its four levers.
2
QuestionAsk what the film claims, and test its figures.
3
InvestigateRepeat the film's tests on your own ground: heat, water, soil life, birds.
4
EvidenceWeigh what you found before deciding anything.
5
ActOne patch to regenerate or one choice to change, with a date to measure again.
Your Lesson Pack
Questions, cases and SDG snapshots you have added, printed as lesson sheets: page 001 for learners, page 002 for adult learners.
Your pack is empty. Use Add To Lesson Pack on any question, case or SDG snapshot.
Each question and case has two A4 pages. Page 001 is for school learners. Page 002 is for adult learners, including teachers preparing the lesson and adult groups in workplaces and communities. SDG snapshots print as a single page. Printing opens the sheets on their own page. Use the Print button at the top, or on a phone use Share and then Print to save a PDF.
Teacher's And Student's Notes
Teacher's Notes And Checklist
Two pages: what the tool is, learning objectives, key words, the nine tabs, a timed hour and an optional second hour.
Student's Notes And Checklist
Two pages for each group to record choices and reasons, tab by tab, with a final checklist.
Select, Classify, Prove
