Lesson Plan: Climate Change Impacts in Italy

As a High School or Undergraduate Earth Sciences, Environmental Sciences, or Geography teacher, you can use this lesson plan to teach your students about climate change and global warming and specifically the impacts of climate change in Italy.

This lesson plan provides an introduction to climate change, causes and impacts of climate change globally, climate change risk profile for Italy that includes climate impacts on major sectors of the country such as agriculture, water resources, human health, and energy. This lesson plan also includes the current and future health risks in Italy due to climate change.

Thus, the use of this lesson plan allows you to teach Climate Science and Climate Change in your Earth Sciences, Environmental Sciences, and Geography classrooms.

Questions

Use this lesson plan to help your students find answers to:

  1. What is climate change? What are the causes of global warming?
  2. What are the global impacts of climate change?
  3. What are the impacts of climate change in Italy?
  4. How will increased temperatures impact Italy?
  5. How will changing weather patterns including changes in precipitation, storms, droughts impact Italy in the future?
  6. What are the current and future health risks due to climate change in Italy?

About Lesson Plan

Grade Level High school, Undergraduate
Discipline Earth Sciences, Environmental Sciences, Geography
Topic(s) in Discipline Climate Change, Global Warming

Climate Change Risk Profile of Italy

Health Impacts of Climate Change

Climate Topic Introduction to Climate Change, Climate Variability Record,

Climate and Health, Climate and Agriculture,

Climate Change and Food Security

Location Europe, Italy
Language(s) English
Access Online
Approximate
Time Required
60 – 75 min

Contents

Reading (15 min) and Video Micro-Lectures (5-15 min) A reading from the NASA Global Climate Change website that includes contains information about what is the scientific evidence for climate change, causes, and impacts of climate change. This can be accessed here.

Optional:  A set of 7  short video micro-lectures (2-5 minutes in length) on climate change and global warming developed by the National Research Council, The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. This can be accessed here.

Reading

(30 min)

A reading by the Climate Change Knowledge Portal of the World Bank to explain climate change and impacts in Italy.

This can be accessed here.

Reading

(15 min)

A reading by the World Health Organization on how climate change can impact human health in Italy.

This can be accessed here.

 

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.

Introduction to Climate Change Introduce to your students what is climate change and global warming using a reading from the NASA Global Climate Change website. This resource contains information about what is the scientific evidence for climate change, causes and impacts of climate change.

This can be accessed here.

Optional: You may choose to provide your students with further information about global climate change using a set of video micro-lectures. This set of 7 of short video micro-lectures (2-5 minutes in length) have been developed by the National Research Council, The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.

They include:
1.       What is Climate? Climate Change, Lines of Evidence Chapter 1
2.       Is Earth Warming? Climate Change, Lines of Evidence Chapter 2
3.       Greenhouse Gases. Climate Change, Lines of Evidence Chapter 3
4.       Increased Emissions. Climate Change, Lines of Evidence Chapter 4
5.       How Much Warming? Climate Change, Lines of Evidence Chapter 5
6.       Solar Influence. Climate Change, Lines of Evidence Chapter 6
7.       Natural Cycles. Climate Change, Lines of Evidence Chapter 7

This video playlist can be accessed here.

Readings ‘Climate Change in Italy’ Use the web resource from the Climate Change Knowledge Portal of the World Bank to explain climate change and climate risks in Italy to your students.

This resource contains the information specific to Italy and includes the following sections:

1. Overview
2. Climate Data -Historical and Future Projections
3. Climate by Sector – Agriculture, Energy, Water, Health
4. Vulnerability
5. Climate Impacts – Agriculture, Water, Sea Level Rise
6. Adaptation

Each section contains relevant climate change information including data, projections, and visualizations. The data is visualized through interactive graphs and users can select different indices, model projections, timescales, and sectors to better understand the impacts of climate change in Italy.

This resource can be accessed here.

Reading: Climate Change and Human Health Impacts in Italy Use a reading by the World Health Organization (WHO) to stress to your students how climate change can impact human health in Italy. This factsheet (8 pages) titled Climate Change and Health: Country Profile: Italy includes information on climate hazard projections for Italy and current and future health risks of climate change in Italy. You could use this factsheet to help your students better understand what risks does climate change poses to human health in Italy with respect to infectious disease, heat related mortality, air pollution etc.

This resource can be accessed here.

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