Teaching Sequence

Work through this resource in the following sequence:

10 minutes

Tune In: What do you already know about climate change?

30 minutes

Find Out: Exploring some of the main points about climate change

15 minutes

Take Action: Climate change glossary

5 minutes

Reflection: Climate change questions

Tune In: What do you already know about climate change?

Step 1

Invite students to participate in a barometer activity. Set up a line on the floor long enough for all students to stand along. Label one end as ‘strongly agree’ and the other end as ‘strongly disagree’. Read out the following statements and ask students to quietly position themselves along the line in the places that most align with their responses.

As you read out each statement, invite students to discuss their position along the line. This is an opportunity to share thoughts and feelings about the topics raised, but be aware that this can be an emotive topic for many young people; please ensure that students are aware of your class discussion guidelines (see the Talking About Climate Change factsheet).

Statements:

I know what climate change is.
I know the difference between climate and weather.
I can name some of the causes of climate change.
I know what the greenhouse effect is.
I know what some of the impacts of climate change are expected to be.
We are already living with a changing climate.
I feel pretty relaxed about climate change.

Students will now begin exploring these topics in more detail.

Find Out: Exploring some of the main points about climate change

Step 1

Pose the question:

What is the difference between climate and weather?

Explain the following information with students or alternatively distribute this Climate Change Fact Sheet to your students to be able to ready through the information.

Weather refers to the short-term conditions of the lower atmosphere. It is the hourly, daily or weekly events such as temperature, cloud cover, wind, heat waves, storms or precipitation. It could be cold, hot, rainy, sunny, windy, foggy, stormy, snowy, etc. Weather is measured over the short term and is reported as a forecast.

Climate is the state of the atmosphere over time. Weather observations are collected over a long period of time - such as 30 years - to help us understand patterns in the weather. This data collected is used to report climate averages for an area, and from that, we can describe the general climatic conditions of an area, such as dry, wet, hot, etc.

Step 2

Optional - this could be used as a differentiation task

Invite students to work in pairs to complete a Venn diagram to explain the differences between climate and weather. A worked example could look like this:

Step 3

Ask your students

What does this have to do with climate change?

Explain to students that climate change is a change in the pattern of weather, and related changes in oceans, land surfaces and ice sheets, occurring over time scales of decades or longer (information also available on the Climate Change Fact Sheet).

How does this happen? Share the following image with the class and use the information below to guide your explanation:

The atmosphere around our Earth is made up of greenhouse gases, such as water vapour, carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide. These gases form a blanket around the Earth, trapping heat from the sun in our atmosphere and keeping the Earth at a steady temperature where life can thrive.

However, in recent years, human activities – such as burning fossil fuels and deforestation – have seen an increase in the amounts of these heat-trapping gases entering the atmosphere, particularly Carbon dioxide (CO2). This has meant that more sun heat is trapped in our atmosphere. This is the greenhouse effect. As more heat is trapped in our atmosphere, the temperature rises. This is known as global warming. Global warming is causing changes to the Earth's climate. This is known as climate change.

Step 4

Students will now watch the following video and answer the following questions (also available on the Student Worksheet). Students could work independently or in pairs, based on ability:

Why reducing our carbon emissions matters (a little story about climate change) (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rivf479bW8Q)

What does this video tell you about the role of the greenhouse effect on our Earth?
How do ice cores help us to understand the changes to climate over time?
What did you find out about the relationship between carbon and temperature?
What does this video tell you about human impacts on the climate?

Once complete, invite students to share their answers through class discussion.

Note: Lesson 2 in this unit digs into the greenhouse effect in more detail, and lesson 3 looks more closely at carbon. Lesson 4 deals with using and understanding scientific models in more detail.

Step 5

Explain to your students that a change in climate isn’t just confined to the atmosphere. Instead, it affects all the spheres of the Earth (hydrosphere, lithosphere and biosphere) and the interactions between the spheres. There are a number of effects of climate change, and each of these effects will have a range of impacts on each sphere. (activity also available on the Student Worksheet)

Note: For the purposes of this lesson, the 5 spheres are:

1. The atmosphere is a mixture of water vapour and gases surrounding Earth, including nitrogen, oxygen, methane, and nitrous oxide.
2. The biosphere contains all living things on Earth (plants, animals, bacteria). Overlaps with the atmosphere, lithosphere and hydrosphere.
3. The hydrosphere includes all the water on the planet (oceans, lakes, rivers, groundwater, etc.)
4. The cryosphere includes all the frozen water on earth, including the ice at the poles and glaciers and icebergs.
5. The lithosphere is the solid part of the earth found under your feet (Earth’s crust and upper mantle, rocks, soil and landforms).

Share the following expected effects of climate change with your students (also available on the Climate Change Fact Sheet):

Hotter temperatures
Changes in storm severity
Increased drought
A warming, rising ocean
Loss of species (Source)

Students will now need to create a table like the one below that includes the effects of climate change alongside each sphere. They then need to come up with an example of an impact from this effect for each sphere (where possible).

For example, hotter temperatures (effect) might lead to bushfires (impact), which can harm living things (the biosphere) and add to air pollution (the atmosphere). Changes in storm severity (impact) can lead to flooding events (effect), which affect the availability of freshwater (the hydrosphere) and can cause erosion (the lithosphere).

Note: These examples have been included in the table below.

Students could work independently or in pairs to complete this task. They may also need to undertake further research to justify their responses.

Sphere	Impact	How is this sphere impacted by this effect? Examples
Hydrosphere	1. Hotter temperatures 2. Changes in storm severity 3. Increased drought 4. A warming, rising ocean 5. Loss of species	1. Freshwater pollution 2. Drought affects water supplies 3. 4. 5
Cryosphere	1. Hotter temperatures 2. Changes in storm severity 3. Increased drought 4. A warming, rising ocean 5. Loss of species	1. 2. 3. 4. 5.
Lithosphere	1. Hotter temperatures 2. Changes in storm severity 3. Increased drought 4. A warming, rising ocean 5. Loss of species	1. Water runoff causes erosion 2. 3. 4. 5.
Biosphere	1. Hotter temperatures 2. Changes in storm severity 3. Increased drought 4. A warming, rising ocean 5. Loss of species	1. More bushfires harm plants and animals 2. 3. 4. 5.
Atmosphere	1. Hotter temperatures 2. Changes in storm severity 3. Increased drought 4. A warming, rising ocean 5. Loss of species	1. Bushfires cause air pollution 2. 3. 4. 5.

Once complete, invite students to share their responses with the class.

Step 6

Finally, explain to students that exploring these impacts can be overwhelming and upsetting. It’s important to remember that there are many people all around the world who are working to meet the challenges of climate change, including scientists, engineers, politicians, car manufacturers, energy providers, fashion designers, families, teachers and students. And we already have many of the solutions to the challenges of climate change. Students will have the chance to explore some of these in other lessons in this unit. In addition, sharing a video like this one could be helpful:

Climate Changes best Hope - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jWu3TlB7XdY

Take Action: Climate change glossary

Step 1

In this task, students make a glossary of all the key terms and concepts they have explored so far in this lesson. They could use an online tool like Canva or create a presentation that can be kept as a working document to be added to throughout the remaining lessons in this unit.

Some terms and concepts to include in the could include:

Weather
Climate
Climate change
Greenhouse effect
Greenhouse gas
Global warming
Carbon dioxide
Hydrosphere
Cryosphere
Biosphere
Lithosphere
Atmosphere

Students may need to research definitions to add to their glossary; however, all definitions need to be written in their own words.

Students could also create their own simple graphics to support each term or concept (e.g. see the image of the greenhouse effect from earlier in this lesson).

Reflection

Students work independently to respond to the following (also available on the Student Worksheet):

Climate change is a big, complex topic that can’t be addressed in one lesson (some people spend years working to understand it!). Think about what you looked at in this lesson and respond to the following:

What questions do you have about the topics raised in this lesson (minimum 5 questions)?

Note: You could use any questions that students generate to guide further discussion or investigation.

Climate Literacy: Introducing Climate Change

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Summary

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