Resources for Climate Week - 4th - 11th March

Hi All. Did you know that that ‘Climate Week’ is coming up between 4th and 11th March? It is meant to be Britain’s biggest climate change campaign and is looking to inspire a new wave of action to create a sustainable future in this country. Whenever events like these come along I always like to try to use them as an opportunity to bring a bit of realism to my students’ learning, the only problem is this usually means having to spend hours writing lesson plans, but with this event help is at hand. Teaching Resources UK has a number of lesson and assembly plans that could be used in association with ‘Climate Week’. These include:

• Climate Change (http://www.teaching-resources-uk.com/lessons/assemblies/Autumn-Term-Assembly-Plans/Climate-Change/)

• Conservation volunteering (http://www.teaching-resources-uk.com/lessons/citizenship/KS4-Volunteering-lesson-plans-worksheets/)

• Conservation issues (http://www.teaching-resources-uk.com/lessons/citizenship/KS4-Volunteering-lesson-plans-worksheets/Conservation-issues/)

• Sustainability (http://www.teaching-resources-uk.com/lessons/citizenship/global-citizenship-lesson-plans/sustainability/)

I am going to be using these resources over the next two weeks so I’ll let you know how I get on.

I’ve just delivered a lesson on sustainability and as I mentioned in the last post I used a lesson plan from Teaching Resources UK. I’ve actually used this twice this week, once with my year 9s and once with year 11s as the resource is aimed at both key stage 3 and 4. The aim of this lesson was for the students to use a list of web links provided in the resource to develop a better understanding of global warming and research what the possible causes are and the effects that it is having. The students are then encouraged to reflect on how changes that we can make on a daily basis can help provide sustainability within environments.

I have to say that both groups really enjoyed the lesson and the information on the websites that the resource provided the links to kept the kids totally engaged and interested and as it is happening next week, we also used the 'Climate Week' website also.

As it is ‘Climate Week’ this week (4th – 11th March) I decided to take the opportunity to use Britain’s biggest climate change campaign to deliver a topical assembly on the subject climate change. For this I used an assembly plan I purchase and downloaded from Teaching Resources UK. The assembly aims to clarify what is meant by climate change and to inform students about the disasters that have occurred and whether they happened as a result of changes to the climate - the brilliant thing is that this resource includes an assembly script and a PowerPoint presentation so there is zero preparation need by you bar familiarising with the material before you deliver it – bingo!

The assembly started by looking at what the term ‘climate’ means and explains that it refers to much more than just the weather. The assembly then invites the students to think about whether or not climate change is actually happening and gives evidence for both sides of the debate.

The assembly then focuses on the 2010 Pakistan floods of a possible example of how climate change can affect the world. The PowerPoint presentation offers facts and statistics from the Pakistan floods, as well as a link to a website showing the areas affected by the flood.

I think the dramatic nature of the images on the presentation certainly engaged the students and emphasized to them how bad the floods were and I think the whole assembly got them thinking about the issue of climate change and how the things that we do can have a massive impact on our climate and environment.