Lesson Plan: Anthropogenic Environmental Changes and Climate

Here is a step-by-step guide to using this lesson plan in the classroom/laboratory. We have suggested these steps as a possible plan of action. You may customize the lesson plan according to your preferences and requirements.

Pre-lesson Activity 

Before the first session, ask your students to calculate their ecological footprint using the WWF Australia ‘What is your Ecological Footprint?’ calculator at home. Direct them to note down their results of:

1. How many planets do we need if everybody lives like you?
2. When is your personal Overshoot Day?

This can be accessed here.

 

Session 1: Starter Task- Think, Pair, Share

Start the first session by posing a few questions to your students:

1. What were your results in the WWF Ecological Footprint?
2. What do you think are the main ways people use energy in their lives?
3. In what ways do you think you could personally reduce your energy use?
4. What would be the easiest ways to reduce vs. the most impactful?’

Use the reading, ‘The day from hell: why the grid melts down in hot weather’ by Michael Bachelard, Sydney Morning Herald (SMH), to prompt a discussion about people’s reliance on energy in their day-to-day lives and what it might feel like to have restrictions on energy use. Direct your students to read the article to understand the impacts of extremely hot days on the electricity system.

This can be accessed here.

Ask them how such hot days could impact their school day. Discuss ways of making better choices in daily energy use by identifying personal, industry, and government responsibilities.

 

Primer for Session 2:

Ask the students to brainstorm about all the ways energy is used in the school, focusing in on cooling and heating. Organize them in pairs or small groups and guide them to plan for an energy audit activity using the following pointers.

1. Decide how you are going to find out about the school’s energy use in cooling and heating (e.g. observing and interviewing).
2. Develop questions you might need to ask to find out what kind of AC/heating is used (e.g. split system, ducted), how long is it used, what temperature is it set at, when it is turned on/off (which outdoor temp?).
3. Decide on-spot audit (proportion of rooms if in a large school) or complete audit if possible.

Consider who you may need to get information from (individual teachers, administration, caretakers) and how you will get this information from them.

 

Session 2: Group Activity

Distribute the Cool Australia School Energy Audit workbook to all groups of students. Alternatively, encourage students to focus on their own inquiry questions to guide their audit.

Note: You will have to sign up for a Cool Australia Log In to access all teaching and student material.

This can be accessed here.

1. Direct your students to follow the guidelines in the Cool Australia School Energy Audit workbook. Alternatively, carry out your own audit plan following your inquiry questions.
2. Allow the students to use class time to conduct their surveys/interviews.
3. As an extension, ask them to identify any current good practices such as the use of solar panels, energy-efficient devices, reflective films on windows, behavioral norms common to the school.

 

Session 3: Extend Understanding

A) Begin by allowing students to explore Our World in Data’s interactive per capita emissions map, ‘CO₂ emissions per capita, 2017’ and notice your country’s place in per capita’s emissions rankings (5 min).

This can be accessed here.

Use these reflection questions:

1. What do you notice about the rankings?
2. What is interesting or surprising to you?
3. What can be done?

B) Invite groups to present the findings of their school energy audits (15 min).

Collate all findings and display them for analysis and discussion – on posters, on a gallery walk or on a shared online document projected for the whole class to see.

Think, pair, share:

1. Analyze audit data, e.g. averages of temperature, the number of hours devices are used, behaviors around heating and cooling energy use.
2. Identify the rooms/places in the school outside the average, both high and low. Discuss why this might be happening.
3. Determine an appropriate temperature most conducive to learning (classroom vs gym vs lunchroom).
4. Locate which rooms/places in the school are above (heating) or below this temperature (cooling) to target your action.
5. Calculate the hours or energy saved by reducing energy use in specific areas Consider monetary savings by reducing energy use. Students can use the Synergy online simulator, ‘Reduce your bill’.

This can be accessed here.

C) Classroom Discussion (10 min):

Encourage the students to think critically about positive changes they recommend, and how best to communicate the energy audit findings.

1. Ask them what specific and positive changes can they recommend around reducing the use of heating or cooling in our school? What broad suggestions will reduce energy use?
2. Question them further about what they can personally do to decrease energy use with the information they have now gathered?

D) Further Action Plan (10 min):

Use the following pointers-

1. Who needs to know about the proposed changes (e.g. Individual teachers, students, school administration)?
2. How should you communicate these changes, so they are adopted by these different groups? (infographic, create a how-to video, presentations)?
3. What information would you include to convince them that this is the best for your local and global community?
4. How would you persuade them?

E) Reflection Questions on Action Plan (10 min):

1. What are the possible advantages/disadvantages of your proposed action for the school to take?
2. How have your feelings about our carbon emissions and impacts changed since completing this investigation?
3. How do you feel now about your carbon emissions and the negative impacts it has?

F) Homework Assignment:

Ask your students to create a presentation that shows their proposed actions and details, giving reasons for choosing these actions and details of the advantages and disadvantages of implementing them.

 

Session 4: Group Presentation

Direct your students to present their action plan to the school in a format appropriate to their audience, inclusive of evidence and explanation as to why such changes are important. Emphasize how this reduced energy use will be beneficial in the larger context of anthropogenic or human-induced impacts on climate change.

Suggested questions/assignments for learning evaluation :

1. What is your individual ecological footprint on Earth?
2. What does your school’s energy audit look like?
3. How do the carbon emissions of your country compare with others/rest of the world?
4. What actions can be taken by you to reduce energy usage?

The tools in this lesson plan will enable students to:

1. learn about energy use in school
2. understand how lifestyle choices impact energy use
3. discuss what actions can be taken to decrease energy use
4. learn about sources of energy use
5. understand how energy use impacts greenhouse gas emissions and the climate
6. discuss greenhouse gas emissions from electricity usage to heat and cool their school

 

If you or your students would like to explore the topic further, these additional resources will be useful.

An interactive tool by Climate Interactive, MIT Sloane, that helps users to explore the likely  onsequences of energy, economic growth, land use, and other policies on global warming. The goal of this tool is to improve their understanding of what works to address climate change

This can be accessed here.

1	Simulation, “What is your Ecological Footprint?”	Provided by WWF Australia
2	Reading, “The day from hell: why the grid melts down in hot weather”	By Michael Bachelard, Sydney Morning Herald (SMH)
3	Classroom Activity, “School Energy Audit workbook”	Provided by Cool Australia
4	Visualization, “CO2 emissions per capita, 2017”	By Our World in Data
5	Simulation; “Reduce your bill”	Developed by Synergy, Australia
6	Additional Resources	Climate Interactive
7	Image(s)	Our World in Data