Student worksheet

In these activities, you will learn about greenhouse gases and evidence of climate change and explain what climate change means.

Activating prior knowledge

Complete the following COLOUR SYMBOL IMAGE around the term ‘climate change’. This means selecting one colour, one symbol, and one image that you think of when you hear the term ‘climate change’. You can add these to the table below (Note: you could find an image online or draw your own.):

Colour	Symbol	Image

Interpreting data graphs

A lot of very accurate weather data has been recorded over the last 100 years. Scientists have used the best modern instruments to show that the old instruments were very accurate. The red line on the graph below has been measured using thermometers. The black line represents measurements taken from a special satellite. Satellite data over the past 30 years matches the measurements taken with thermometers at weather stations.

This graph shows the world’s average temperature for the past 140 years:

This graph comes from NASA.

Use this graph to help you answer the following questions:

1. What units of measurement are on the horizontal axis?

2. What units are on the vertical axis?

3. Why do you think the graph zig-zags up and down?

4. Explain why you think the temperature is or isn’t changing.

5. What would you expect to happen with the graph over the next 50 years?

Extension activity:

Go to the Australian Bureau of Meteorology site.
Navigate to monthly rainfall or temperature records for a location of your choice. Once you have made your choices and clicked ‘Get data’, go to the bottom and get the monthly totals.
Cut the data from the report, e.g. highlight and hit Control X. Paste the data into an Excel spreadsheet or a similar application. Once you are working in the spreadsheet, experiment with the charts found under the menu item ‘insert’.
Choose a graph (chart) that best interprets the data.

Interpreting greenhouse gas emissions

This pie chart compares the top countries producing the highest greenhouse gas emissions.

Source.

Look at this pie chart and try to answer the following questions:

1. What percentage of greenhouse gases does Australia produce?

2. Which countries are the top three ranking producers of greenhouse gases?

This bar graph compares the amount of greenhouse gases per person (per capita) in the top 17 countries:

Source.

Look at this bar graph and try to answer the following questions:

3. How is Australia rated?

4. How many countries on the bottom graph are not shown on the top graph?

5. What do you think these graphs say about Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions in comparison to those of other countries?

Now, look at the following graph. This graph comes from the OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development). The OECD is the name given to the combined developed (wealthiest and best-educated) countries of the world.

Graph sourced from: Australia: State of the Environment - 2016 Atmosphere

Try to answer the following questions about this graph:

6. How many more greenhouse gases (per person per tonne) are roughly being produced in Australia compared to the average for other OECD countries?

7. Finally, choose one of the graphs you looked at and explain why you think this graph best represents Australia’s role in the production of greenhouse gases.

Are Humans contributing to climate change?

Use the following websites to find at least six pieces of evidence that show that greenhouse gases produced by humans are contributing to climate change. Remember to record all of your information sources.

Source	Evidence

Climate change pamphlet

Working as a group, you will now design a pamphlet with the following parameters:

An adult target audience
An explanation of how climate change is affecting the climate and whose greenhouse gas emissions are most powerfully affecting the climate
Powerful evidence to support the claims in your pamphlet

Keep the writing simple, using illustrations if you wish (if you source any images from the internet, remember to add a source). Use only one side of an A4 page for the pamphlet.

Reflection

Try to think of up to three feelings and emotions that are evoked when you hear about climate change. It might be hard to come up with more than two, but keep thinking as these feelings might be very interesting.

1.

2.

3.

Trends in Climate Change

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