Teaching Sequence

Work through this resource material in the following sequence:

30 minutes	Part A: Thinking about the present
30 minutes	Part B: Our climate future
50 minutes	Part C: Imagining your future - visual storytelling
10 minutes	Reflection

Part A - Thinking about the present

Step 1.

Explain to students that in this lesson they will be looking at and thinking about the environment both now and in the future.

To begin this process, take students outside and have them sit quietly in an area around the teacher. Students need to be close enough to the teacher to hear instructions.

Once students have settled, ask them to reflect on the environment that is around them. Ask them to use their senses to experience the environment around them. What can they see? Ask students to close their eyes: what can they hear, taste, smell and feel?

Students don’t need to respond to your questions; they should just absorb their experiences quietly.

Still sitting, ask students to imagine they are 90 years old and they have come back to visit this spot. How is it different? What has changed? What do they see, hear, taste, smell and feel?

Step 2.

Back in the classroom, ask students to think of two sentences* to describe what they experienced as they observed the nature around them. Students can use the Student Worksheet to record their responses.

* Year 5 students could create sentences that combine nouns and adjectives to provide a fuller description of their experiences (e.g. the hot sun reminded me of being on Bondi beach). Year 6 students could focus on incorporating verbs and adverbs into their sentences to create a fuller description of their experiences (e.g. I could hear the birds singing happily).

As students think of their sentences the teacher should create a table on the board with two columns. Label one column PRESENT and the other column FUTURE.

Once students have completed their sentences ask them to share what they have written through a brief class discussion. Record keywords on the table under the PRESENT column.

Ask students to share their ideas about the future, writing keywords on the table under the column FUTURE.

Step 3.

Once complete, ask students to break into small groups. Each group should create a Venn diagram (see below) that incorporates the keywords from the PRESENT and the FUTURE. Keywords that appear in both categories should be placed in the overlapping section.

Step 4.

Ask students to compare the words in their Venn diagrams. Consider the following questions:

Does one circle have more positive sounding words? Which one and why?
What types of words overlap (appear in both circles)?
What is most surprising or interesting about the words in the Venn diagrams?

Part B - Our climate future

Step 1.

Share the following video with students (also available on the Student Worksheet). You can either watch this as a class or students can individually watch it on personal devices using the Student Worksheet.

Climate change: Earth's giant game of Tetris - Joss Fong (https://youtu.be/ztWHqUFJRTs)

Once complete, engage students in a class discussion around the following questions. It is not expected that students will have the answers to the following questions just from watching the video: instead the aim of the discussion is to broaden student understanding of climate change, global warming and the greenhouse effect. Answers to the questions have also been provided:

What is the greenhouse effect? - The greenhouse effect describes the way the atmosphere acts as a blanket, keeping the earth warm enough for us to live on. The problem is that with more CO₂ in the atmosphere, the heat that usually escapes into space is being trapped around the earth. This is causing global warming.
What is global warming? - Global warming refers to the heating up of the atmosphere from increased production of CO₂. Global warming is causing the climate to change.
What is climate change? - Climate change refers to general changes in climate patterns, including temperature, precipitation, winds, and other factors. When people talk about ‘climate change’ they are talking about how human activities have changed the climate: by releasing CO₂ into the atmosphere from burning fossil fuels, we are heating up the atmosphere. This causes changes in the long-term patterns of climate. In Australia it will probably mean hotter and drier conditions, and increases in extreme weather events.
NOTE: Weather is the day-to-day changes in temperature, precipitation, wind and other factors.

Step 2.

What does climate change mean for Australia? Working independently or in pairs ask students to view the Choose Your Climate Future website and complete the following activities:

Create a graph to describe the changes in sea level rise from 1.5 degrees, 2 degrees, and 3+ degrees.
Create a consequence wheel for one of the following issues (students can use this Consequence wheel or create their own):
- The impacts of warming oceans on humans
- The impacts of drought on farming
- The effects of more high fire danger days on rural communities
Ranking ladder – Use the Ranking ladder to describe which 5 points highlighted on the Choose Your Climate Future website are the most important to you.
Select one issue highlighted on the Choose Your Climate Future website and explore it in more depth using the following questions:
- What do you think you know about this topic?
- What questions or puzzles do you have?
- How can you explore this topic?

Step 3.

Ask students to share one of their answers from the four points above. Depending on time, students can share their work with the whole class or with a classmate.

Part C. Imagining your future

Step 1.

Explain to students that the reason there are different scenarios around the future impacts of climate change is because if the world acts now to address climate change then temperatures won’t rise as much as they could if no one acts.

Explain that this means it is up to us to both imagine and create the future we want to see.

The task for students is to imagine the world they would like to see in the future and to create a visual representation of this world. The visual text could be based around the following:

“A day in the life, 36525 days in the future…”
“A dark past, a bright future…”

Alternatively/additionally, use the following story starters to guide the storytelling:

NewsNow7 reported that the sky was the brightest it had been in 38 years. I shouted over the edible grass hedge at my neighbours “we did it!”
I was harvesting the corn in the community nutrition garden, navigating my way between the rice terrace and the artificial meat terrace when I saw it.

Alternatively/additionally, students can use the following images as stimulus (also available on the Student Worksheet).

This visual representation can take the form of:

Comic strip – Must have at least 20 frames
Animation – Must be at least 30 seconds in length
Short film – Must be at least 1 minute in length

Students MUST include the following information in their texts:

A description of the world they visualise in the future;
Why this is better than the future under a 3 degree rise in global temperatures caused by climate change.

Students can use the following worksheets to help them create their visual texts (also available on the Student Worksheet):

Create a gallery of student stories for other students, teachers and members of the school community to enjoy.

Reflection

Ask students to complete the Reflection Activity on the Student Worksheet.

Differentiated Learning

Extension: Ask students to imagine how Aboriginal and Torres Islander peoples might imagine the future of our environment. Students can work from the Student Worksheet to explore this topic.

Provisional Learning Support: Students can work in pairs or small groups. Students can complete fewer of the tasks associated with the Climate Futures website activity.

Earth Hour - Choose Your Climate Future

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