Teaching Sequence

10 minutes – Part A: What is Climate Change?
30 minutes – Part B: How might Climate Change affect Biodiversity?
15 minutes – Part C: Biodiversity and the Changing Climate
5 minutes – Reflection

Work through this resource material in the following sequence:

Part A: What is Climate Change?

Step 1. Begin this lesson by writing the term ‘climate change’ on the board. Invite students to spend one minute working independently to write down as many things they know about climate change in their Student Worksheet.

Once complete, invite students to spend two minutes sharing their thoughts with everyone.

Step 2. Next, invite students to spend one minute working independently to write down any questions they have about climate change.

Once complete, invite students to form pairs and spend two minutes sharing their questions with each other. Explain to the class that they will be sharing some of their partner's questions with the whole group very soon so it's important that they pay close attention to what one another is sharing.

Draw your class together and ask students to share one great question that their partner came up with. This technique can reduce student's anxieties around sharing with the whole class because they are offering another student's ideas, as well as helping to boost self-esteem by showing students that their peers value their ideas.

Step 3. Now, explain to students that they will be watching a clip about climate change. Students should make notes about anything interesting or important they see in the clip.

Hot tip: This clip uses temperatures in fahrenheit. Consider asking your student to record any temperatures mentioned in the clip as it plays. Once the clip is done, use a fahrenheit to celsius converter to convert these figures.

Climate Change 101 with Bill Nye - National Geographic (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EtW2rrLHs08)

Once complete, invite students to work in pairs to answer the following questions (students can discuss their ideas in their pairs however each student needs to write their own answers):

What things did you find interesting or important about this clip?
How did this clip help to explain climate change to you?
What new questions do you now have about climate change?

Once complete, invite students to share their answers with the class. Through your discussion with students, you can use the following definition to help students clarify their understanding of climate change:

Rising levels of greenhouse gases – particularly CO₂ – caused by burning fossil fuels, are heating the atmosphere to an extent where the climate is changing. With more CO₂ in the atmosphere and with a changing climate we can expect to see:

More frequent high temperatures and less frequent low temperatures, and warmer winter conditions
A decrease in snow cover
An increase in both the frequency and severity of extreme weather events
Rising sea levels
Ocean acidification

Source: https://climate.nasa.gov/causes/

Part B: How might Climate Change Affect Biodiversity?

Step 1. As a thought starter, play the following clip between time stamps 1:40-3:37:

The Human Impact of Climate Change: Personal Stories (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b2V1Y1Mo4GU)

Step 2. In the next part of the lesson, students will brainstorm the ways that a changing climate might affect biodiversity. Break your class into pairs or small groups and assign groups one of the following consequences of climate change:

Rising temperatures (Hotter)
Increase in number of droughts (Drier)
Increase in extreme weather events, such as storms (Extreme Weather)
Rising sea levels (Rising Sea)
Decreased snow cover (Less Snow)

Ask each group to create a mind map (using bubbl.us, mindmeister or a piece of butcher's paper) showing how they think biodiversity might be affected by a changing climate. Students can use the abbreviated consequences bracketed in the list above at the centre of their mind map.

Step 3. On the whiteboard, use the example below to demonstrate this process to your students. This mind map has been based on the question 'how will plants, animals and people be affected if the climate gets hotter?'

Hot tip: To complete this activity, your class may need a brief reminder of how to define biodiversity. If this is the case, we recommend the following definition:

Biodiversity is the variety of all living things; the different plants, animals and micro organisms, the genetic information they contain and the ecosystems they form. Biodiversity is usually explored at three levels - genetic diversity, species diversity and ecosystem diversity. These three levels work together to create the complexity of life on Earth.

Source: https://australianmuseum.net.au/what-is-biodiversity

Step 3. Once students have completed their mind maps, ask them to mark each bubble on their maps as either a positive or a negative. For example:

Extensions:

Introduce problematic knowledge such as the fact that animals having fewer young is a negative for the species but could be a positive for humans if they are pest species. Invite the class to identify other pieces of problematic knowledge in the brainstorm.
Invite students to form small groups of 3-4 and allocate each group either 'hot areas' or 'cold areas'. Challenge groups to copy and amend the brainstorm on the board as they believe it would affect the species in either an already hot or already cold environment. Demonstrate this task by using one the points on your class brainstorm, for example in an already cold area animals may experience less stress as the temperature rises.

Encourage 'hot area' groups to team up with a 'cold area' group and compare the differences in their allocated environments.

Step 4. Invite groups to share with the class the impacts on biodiversity they identified. Ask students to include whether the impacts they identified were either a positive or a negative impact.

Step 5. Engage students in a class discussion around the impacts identified:

Can you identify some common themes? What are they?
Which impacts are most frequently identified by your classmates? Why do you think this is?
Are the impacts mostly positive or negative? Why do you think this is?
Which types of events will have the most significant or serious impacts?
What do you think we can we do to help protect our biodiversity from the impacts of climate change?
What are some flow-on consequences for human health and well-being?

Extension: Watching the following clip and discussing if any of your student's impacts were mentioned:

State of the Climate 2016 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2MIlFNQniYI)

Hot tip: Contact your local council to see if they have a climate change strategy in place. This can help inform discussions around what is happening locally in regards to climate change.

Part C: Biodiversity and the Changing Climate

Step 1. Explain to students that climate change is already causing some species to change their behaviour or the way they grow, and scientists are observing these changes in order to understand how climate may affect biodiversity at large.

For example, scientists have observed that warmer temperatures are causing some plant species to flower earlier or contract their distribution. This can have a significant effect on the animals who feed on the plant’s flowers or depend on the plant for nesting habitat. This is currently affecting populations of swift parrots who rely on Tasmanian Blue Gum and Swamp Gum. Scientists have also observed that more frequent extreme heat events are occurring with climate change and this is causing some animals to be pushed beyond their physiological limits causing mass die-offs to occur. These impacts illustrate the importance of extreme weather events in addition to gradual changes in average annual temperature affecting our biodiversity.

Source: https://theconversation.com/killer-climate-tens-of-thousands-of-flying-foxes-dead-in-a-day-23227

Explain to students that there is a branch of science called phenology which is concerned with how the climate influences the recurrence and duration of seasonal behaviours of animal and plant life, such as plant budding and bird nesting or migration. ClimateWatch is Earthwatch's citizen science program and is a leader in collecting phenological data on a national scale. Source: https://www.climatewatch.org.au/

Invite students to watch the following clip about phenology and to record any information they find important or interesting.

Phenology and nature's shifting rhythms - Regina Brinker (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RNs3XpRmRfI)

Once complete invite students to work in pairs to answer the following questions (encourage students to discuss their ideas in their pairs however each student needs to write their own answers):

What was this clip about? What did you see in this clip?
What did you find interesting or important about this clip?
How do you think phenology might help scientists better understand what is happening with climate change?

Step 2. Finally, explain to your class that the good news is, because of the work of organisations such as Earthwatch and their ClimateWatch program, biological data is being collected to help us understand climate change impacts and help find solutions. We are starting to change and adapt to the pressures of climate change, and helping other species do the same. The shy albatross is just one example of a creative solution to the issues caused by climate change.

Show your students this final clip:

An EGGcellent Solution For The Shy Albatros WWF-Australia (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nhPfy5cK9Fo)

Note: In the following lesson, Using Citizen Science to Explore your Schoolyard, students will begin investigating phenology in their local area. If you are not planning to progress to the next lesson, you could finish this activity by inviting students to research reported changes in phenology connected to climate change in their local area.

Reflection

Invite students to complete the following sentence starters (also available on the Student Worksheet):

I used to think plants and animals' relationship with climate change was…
But now I think…

Teacher Reflection

Note: Cool Australia and Earthwatch have also partnered to create citizen science units of work for maths and geography. To further enhance students' learning, consider teaming up with teachers in these complementary faculties to run a cross-curricular project on phenology and citizen science.

Citizen Science - Understanding Climate Change and Phenology

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