Subject: Science
Lesson Length: 45 mins - 1 hour
Topic: Climate
Grade Level: 3, 4, 5
Standards / Framework:
Brief Description: Climate Change is often cited as the defining issue of our time, as its ongoing effects threaten our collective future. In this lesson students will learn about climate change, its causes, potential impacts, and things that humans can do to address it.
Know Before You Start: Students should know the difference between climate and weather.
Hook:
- Share this quote by Andrew John Herbertson, a British geographer and Professor at Oxford: “Climate is what on average we may expect. Weather is what we actually get.”
- Ask students to share their thoughts on what the quote means.
Activity:
- Individually, in pairs, or in small groups, have students research climate change.
- Using their research, ask students to create a three-to-five-panel comic that includes a definition of climate change, how it differs from weather, the causes, potential impacts, and things humans can do to slow or reverse it.
Closure:
- Set up a gallery walk so that students can view and discuss the comics.
- Ask students to share one thing they and their families can do immediately to help address climate change.
Differentiation:
- Allow students to use the speech-to-text feature.
- Allow students to use the voiceover feature to read their comics aloud.
- Provide the definition of climate change and the information needed to complete the comic.
Resources:
- Comic to print or display: Comic.
- Book: A True Book - Ecosystems: Climate Change.
Suggested Content Packs:
Make a comic about Winter
Make a comic about National Parks
Make a comic about The Ocean
Make a comic about the Rainforest
Suggested Story Starters:
