The Global Climate Change

BOCM - 4th GRADE:

THE CLIMATE CHANGE

 AND

GLOBAL WARMING

Alexis Navia Marzo

16078539-K

The Global Climate Change theme utilizes a hybrid of two instructional strategies: Problem-based learning and Project-based learning. It is designed under the theme of Global Climate Change. Each rotation, the students will investigate and resolve an structured problem based on real-world issues surrounding climate change. The students will engage in several issues surrounding Global Climate Change.

The project will have a duration of a hole school year. The will learn and imbrance the topic throught investigating,  taking actions with the community and reflecting about the problem.

Because environmental issues matters, like climate change, are important to all our futures. For the geographers that we are teaching today who will come up with the solutions to environmental problems to every each family that can help to combat again the climate change. Whilst climate change is a huge global issue, together we can help combat it. This lesson plan could will be used as a part of work on climate change, to discover what people are doing today to help reduce their impact on the environment.

And because the science of climate change is a very difficult topic to teach and students have difficulty grasping the complex and the dense systems involved, I used a creative learning approach to teach the topic in order to aware the students the ecological contexts they need to know.

Time: The lessons are planned to be once a week, with a total of 36 weeks in a school year. In the “Conocimiento del medio subject” we are going to invert, at least, a class pero week to the climate change topic. Depending on the stage they are working on, it will be more than one hour needed. But no strict time needs to be specified, but depends on the level, motivation and ideas of the students and teacher.

Prior learning:

• It is helpful if the children have: used a range of sources of evidence. Includng artefacts, pictures and written sources of the climate.

• Studied the layers of the Earth, the Earth athmosphere such as Troposphere, Stratosphere, etc.

• Know about the climates zones of the planet and Spain and its characteristics.

• Identify the continents in a map

Vocabulary: In this topic, the children will have opportunities to use:

• new words associated with the global warming: the carbon footprint, the greenhouse effect, heat, pollution..
• new words associated with energies: solar powe, nuclear energy, biodiesel, hydropower, wind power..
• new words associated with the weather: rainfall, floodings, heat waves, hurricanes, droghts and lack of rainfalls..

Resources: A book called “Arctic Tale”, a world map to identify the places where global warming is taking its toll, magazines, newspapers, a computer with a printer, television for watching videos. 

Expectations:

• At the end of this unit,

1.Students will be able to explain the elements of climate and analyze the earth's energy balance that affects climate change. (What is climate change?)
2.Students will be able to identify various sources of evidence used to chart climate and apply the evidence to determine the proximate and ultimate causes. (What is responsible for climate change and how do we know?)
3. Students will be able to analyze the impact of climate change on environmental, biological and social systems. (Why does climate change matter?)
4. Students will be able to compare climate change mitigation and adaptations strategies (macro and micro) in light of environmental, economic, political, and ethical impact. (What can we do?)
5. Students will use data and evidence to justify claims relating to climate, climate change, and mitigation. 

6.Students understand the importance of reflecting about a problem

7.Students are capable to demonstrate a problem to the community and awarn the society.

• some children will not have describe all the fosil fuels or gasses known.
• made so much progress and will: making simple observations about sources of information
• some children will have make a reasoned judgement about the validity of different representations of the climate change
• progressed further and will: answer questions about the global waring by selecting and combining information from sources, giving reasons for their selection and possible solutions.

Activities

The teacher will use the approach of Service Learning. A learning approach that combines the ideas of service and learning: the concept of learning throught five stages: Investigation, preparation, action, reflection and demostration. By understading how stage works, we can be more effective in making environmental works to help our community.

The students will spend one hour per week in the classroom, doing their research on the climate change.

Stage 1: Investigation

The first stage of service learning is the Investigation. What will we investigate? The description of climate change, consecuences, the needs in our community related to the climate change and global warming that we are able to do about.

In the introduction, almost anything that motivates and stimulates to the children's intesrest can be used to introduce a unit, porject or theme. The purpose is to arouse children's curiosity. The teacher will iniciate with a question, to stimulate their thinking:

• Why is it hot in summer and cold in winter?
• What is more, on these lastest years, why are we having a cooler summer and a hotter winter?

Then, the teacher will explain the climate change process to the pupils, it can be with a comic, video, draws, anything the teacher will consider the best for the pupils.

• Points to note: This activity is designed to help children collect information in a structured way.

The teacher may need to model the activity with the children before they begin to work

on their own.

This activity could be adapted by giving the children some ‘sentence-starters’ to record

their findings, eg:

This evidence tells me for certain that...

This evidence suggests that...

I now need to find out...

This activity could be extended by asking the children to use reference books to see if