A free unofficial lesson companion for teachers bringing the documentary How to Live on Earth into and out of the classroom mapped out to GreenComp. Built for biodiversity and sustainability teaching with students aged 11 to 16, it follows the film's three questions: How to value nature, How to feed the future, and How to feel human, and turns each into 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 screening notes, curriculum links, and guidance for using the film simply and effectively.
Free to screen on YouTube, and ready to adapt to your own students and setting.
The How To Live On Earth Pulse
Select, Classify, Prove
The How To Live On Earth Companion
How to Live on Earth is a feature documentary presented by Benedict Cumberbatch and free to watch on YouTube. It asks three questions: how to value nature, how to feed the future and how to feel human. 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 (Open Planet Studios, 2026), with every case mapped to GreenComp (JRC, 2022) and to the 169 SDG targets. Film details checked against UNDP, Open Planet and partner sources on 7 October 2026.
3Questions
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, with its timing, 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
How to Live on Earth, presented by Benedict Cumberbatch and directed by Fredi Devas for Open Planet Studios. It premiered globally on YouTube on 20 September 2026 and is free to watch.
Open Planet Studios, with the Villars Institute Foundation and Silvania, 2026.
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 three questions do not sit in separate boxes. Each draws on more than one GreenComp area, and each case touches several SDG targets, most often under Life On Land, Life Below Water, Zero Hunger and Sustainable Cities. 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 in London's Natural History Museum, among the remains of extinct and vanishing species, and asks whether we, the species that calls itself wise, are living wisely yet. Its answer is that we are not, but that we could be. It makes the case through real people rather than data.
Four Chapters In The Story Of A Planet
1
A Time Before LifeThe planet without living things.
2
A Time When Life EvolvesLiving systems appear and spread.
3
A Time Of Intelligent Life, UnrestrainedIts impact grows until it threatens the planet. The film places Earth here.
4
A Time Of Wise LifeThe same intelligence works out how to be a positive force. Only those alive now can make the move.
From the film, 1:24:34 to 1:25:29. From The Film
Three Questions
The film argues we become wise when we solve three puzzles, and uses them as its structure. This tool follows the same spine, and adds the Klamath River as the turning point.
Key Term: Biodiversity
The film's whole argument turns on one measure. It presents biodiversity as Earth's pulse, its breathing rate, a single reading of how healthy the living system is, and argues that our own stability rests on it.
The three questions all lead back to it. We value nature by learning to count its biodiversity, we feed the future without draining it, and we stay well only while it holds. The film's proposal is to link the world economy to this metric, so that, in its own phrase, biodiversity becomes bankable.
People In The Film
Figures To Test
Every number the tool uses, with the point in the film where it appears. Treat each as a claim to check against other sources, not a fact to memorise. Timings are from the YouTube release and may differ slightly between versions.
Screening Notes
The film runs to about an hour and a half. Show it in full with older groups, or split it by question across lessons, using the timings on the Questions tab. Set one question before each part so students watch with a purpose, then pause and take answers.
Timeline
1
22 June 2026World premiere at London Climate Action Week.
2
26 June 2026Release in select cinemas.
3
20 September 2026Global premiere on YouTube, 7pm in London and 8pm in Central Europe. Free to watch from then on.
Sources: Televisual, June 2026; UNDP and Climate Week NYC event pages, September 2026.
The Three Questions And The Turning Point
Open each question 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 its timings, the figures it reports, a question for your learners and two activities. Filter by question 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 three questions.
2
QuestionAsk which direction the film took, and whether it convinces.
3
InvestigateTest the film's cases against local evidence and observation.
4
EvidenceWeigh what you found before deciding anything.
5
ActOne thing to protect or restore, individual or collective, then report back.
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
