Teacher Preparation

Overarching learning goal: By participating in this activity is is hoped that students will recognise that different people think about climate change in different ways. Students will understand that climate change is a complex issue with difficult questions but that there are common themes in how different people think about climate change.

Teacher content information:

Cool Australia Presents Climate Change (https://vimeo.com/84835327)

About Earth Hour: Earth Hour is a WWF-Australia initiative, and is the world’s largest community-driven climate change campaign. At the centre of Earth Hour is switching off lights to show a commitment to taking action. Thousands of teachers use Earth Hour’s education program to enrich their curriculum and provide pathways for young people to create change in their world.

Download the Earth Hour starter kit for your school: Earth Hour for Schools

Student and classroom organisation:

Step 1.

Begin this activity by asking each student to write down 10 words that spring to mind when they think of the terms 'climate change' and 'the greenhouse effect'. The words can come from what students already know about the science of this topic, or can reflect an emotive response to this topic.

Ask students to share these words with the class, and as a class, create a word cloud. Remember to put a comma between each word. Words that appear with higher frequency will appear bigger in the word cloud, so don't worry if students suggest the same word multiple times, as the word cloud will reflect their thinking.

Once complete, hold a brief discussion with your students about the class word cloud. Consider using the following questions:

Which words are the most common in your class?
Why do you think these words are the most common?

Step 2.

Ask students to spend 10 minutes exploring the Climate Change Toolbox on the Cool Australia website. Students must read this section on climate change and the Climate change fact sheet. Once these two items have been read, students can spend the rest of the time looking through the other resources.

Once the 10 minutes are up, ask students to create questions using the following question starters based upon what they saw and read in the Toolbox (question starters also available on the student worksheet):

How would it be different if…?
Suppose that…?
What are the reasons…?
What if…?
What if we knew…?
What is the purpose of…?
What would change if…?
Why…?

Step 3.

Once students have completed their questions, ask them to select one questions that they would like answered. Students should write this question on a piece of paper and hand this paper to the teacher. The teacher should then distribute these questions amongst the class to be answered.

Ask each student to investigate an answer to the question they were given. Students should create a poster that shares the question and describes the answer. Answers should be kept to a maximum of 5 sentences and students can use images in support of their answer.

Step 4.

Once all students have completed their posters, display the posters in the classroom and engage students in a discussion around the posters. Consider using the following questions to guide your discussion:

Which types of questions were most popular? Why do you think that is?
What topics were the most popular? Why do you think that is?
Which types of questions/topics were the easiest to answer and why? Which were hardest and why?

Assessment/Reflection

1. Again working as class create a new word cloud word cloud using key words from the class posters. Work together to decide what sorts of words you will include (emotive, scientific, descriptive etc). Alternatively, students could work in groups to create word clouds based upon different sorts of words.

2. Ask students to reflect on this activity using the PMI chart (available on the student worksheet).

Earth Hour - Climate Change and the Greenhouse Effect

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