Lesson video

Hi there.

Welcome to today's lesson.

This is a Geography lesson, and I'm your teacher, Ms. Roberts.

This lesson is part of our unit which is exploring a country called the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which is found in Africa.

Today's lesson, we're gonna be thinking about how climate change is affecting this country.

By the end of the lesson today, you will be able to explain how climate change is affecting the DRC and its people.

Let's begin with looking at some of the keywords that are going to come up in the lesson today.

So you really need to be able to understand what these words mean.

First of all, we have agriculture.

You may have heard people talk about agriculture in relation to farming.

Agriculture is the science and the practise of cultivating soil and farming on it.

Biodiversity.

This refers to all of the living things in any ecosystem or area, whether that's the teeny tiny pond or a very vast tropical rainforest.

The biodiversity is all the living things in the area.

The next word here is a phrase, two words, carbon sink.

A carbon sink is anything that absorbs and stores up more carbon than it gives out.

Climate change is the next of our keywords.

Climate change is very important in today's world.

You've probably heard it a lot.

Climate change refers to large-scale and long-term change in the climate of our planet.

And that includes weather patterns and average temperatures that we experience.

Finally, another phrase, two words, is food insecurity.

This is when anybody is unable to regularly access enough safe and nutritious food to live, work, and play.

So when you don't have enough food to get by, then there is food insecurity.

Okay, so the structure of the lesson today is three parts.

First two parts are looking at some specific aspects of life in the DRC and how climate change affects them.

We're gonna start by looking at the tropical rainforest and then we're going to be looking at farming.

Finally, we're gonna be thinking about climate action.

What action can we take to help the DRC to tackle the effects and impacts of climate change? Let's begin then by thinking about how climate change is affecting the rainforest.

The Congo rainforest is a huge area of tropical rainforest, and it's found in the Congo Basin, so not just in the DRC, in some other African nations as well that are all fed by the Congo River.

This expanse of tropical rainforest is the second largest tropical rainforest on Earth after the Amazon in South America.

It's about 310 million hectares in all.

That's about 1.

5 million square miles in the Central Western area of Africa.

Of that area, about 107 million hectares is found in the DRC.

Unfortunately, the DRC is experiencing extremely high rates of deforestation.

We can see here that after Brazil, the DRC is the country with the most deforestation in the world.

One of the main reasons for this amount of deforestation is that the tropical rainforest is in itself a natural resource.

Trees are logged, or cut down, because they produce hardwoods like mahogany for furniture making.

This process of logging is used to get the timber.

Other reasons that the rainforest is cut down in the DRC include things like road building, mining for natural resources, and agriculture.

And this deforestation has a massive impact in particular on the biodiversity of the rainforest.

Deforestation causes habitat loss.

Habitat loss means that many species of animals and birds lose their homes.

And this impacts the entire rainforest biome.

It affects all of the tropical plants, all of the vines and the wildlife.

From the tiniest insects, tree frogs, up to the great gorillas, and the okapi that you can see here are all at risk due to that habitat loss.

The mountain gorilla and the okapi that you can see here in these pictures are particularly special species.

And they're special because they are only found in the wild in certain parts of the world.

The mountain gorilla is only found in the Congo rainforest.

About a third of the living wild populations of mountain gorilla are in the DRC.

Okapis are only found in the DRC.

If these species are not protected and deforestation continues, we risk losing these species forever.

Let's just take a moment for a quick check on our learning before we move along.

Here are three of the Oak Academy children.

Which of them has the right definition of biodiversity? Andeep says that biodiversity is the animals of the tropical rainforest.

Sam says that biodiversity is the trees and plants of the tropical rainforest.

And Alex says that the biodiversity is the animals, the plants, and the trees of tropical rainforest.

Who is referring to the biodiversity of the tropical rainforest? Alex is correct because biodiversity refers to all living things, not just some of them.

Look at this picture of the Congo rainforest.

You can get an idea of just how vast it is from this picture.

Now, trees absorb carbon dioxide through the process of photosynthesis.

The Congo rainforest stores an amazing 32 million tonnes of carbon.

The carbon is stored up in the trees, and in the plants, and in the very rich, peaty soils of the rainforest.

This area absorbs approximately one and a half million tonnes of carbon from our atmosphere every year.

And so, for that reason, it's one of the world's most important carbon sinks.

It plays an incredibly important part in the global carbon cycle, but deforestation is posing a threat to this.

Deforestation in the Congo rainforest means it no longer has the ability to absorb as much carbon dioxide.

This means that less carbon dioxide is removed from the atmosphere, so more carbon dioxide is left in it.

Having more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere contributes to what we call the enhanced greenhouse effect.

And this is what leads to global warming.

Global warming continues, and this leads to what we call climate change.

This is how climate change and the rainforest of the DRC are directly linked.

And this process of deforestation happening in the DRC has direct impact on our lives around the world.

Climate change means that extreme weather events are becoming more and more frequent.

This is shown in the chart you can see here.

Extreme weather events like heavy rain, droughts, and heat waves are becoming more frequent as the planet gets hotter as a result of climate change.

Let's have a learning check.

Can you complete this sentence for me? Tropical rainforests absorb vast amounts of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and they are known as carbon what? Cupboards, basins, sinks, or containers? They're carbon sinks.

Well done.

Let's complete an activity now about how climate change and the rainforest of the DRC are linked.

You saw this chart about the increased frequency of extreme weather events.

I would like you to explain how deforestation of the Congo rainforest is contributing to this occurrence.

I've given you a bank of vocabulary to help you with your response.

You should aim to write approximately one paragraph.

You can look back on what you've seen so far in this lesson for support or you can also work with a partner.

Pause the video, and when you come back, I will share an example response with you.

Ready? Let's take a look at an example.

Your answer may have looked like this.

Deforestation takes place in the Congo rainforest for many reasons.

Often, trees are cut down because they are natural resources and people can make money.

Trees absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

Forests are called carbon sinks because they absorb so much.

If there are fewer trees, then less carbon dioxide is absorbed and more remains in the atmosphere.

This means that the greenhouse effect is stronger and temperatures increase.

Climate change happens as temperatures increase and extreme weather, such as droughts, heat waves, torrential rainfall happens more often.

Well done.

Now, this takes us nicely to our second part of the lesson, which is about how climate change and farming are related.

Let's begin.

Agriculture is a major industry in the DRC.

They make a lot of money from farming.

They grow crops like cassava, which you can see here in the picture.

And they also grow things like cocoa beans and coffee beans.

And there are vast areas of farmland all throughout the DRC.

In 2022, the DRC produced a whopping 48.

8 million tonnes of cassava for export.

As well as commercial farming for export, lots of people in the DRC survive through small scale subsistence forming.

This is where people are growing food for themselves and their family to eat.

They're not selling it to make money.

The climate of the DRC where it's located near the equator means that it experiences periods of very heavy downpours.

Because of climate change, rainfall is increasing.

Increased rainfall means there's an increased risk of flooding, and this means that farming is becoming more and more challenging for farmers in the DRC.

In 2024, the DRC experienced some of the worst flooding it had seen for decades when the Congo River burst its banks.

Here's an example of a newspaper report from the time.

In January, 2024, it was reported, "More than 300 people have died in the DRC as heavy rains and flooding have forced over half the country to evacuate their homes.

Hundreds of schools, roads, and health centres have been damaged since the start of the rains in late November." We're going to use this newspaper report now for a quick activity.

Here's the report again.

I'd like you to read it and then state three impacts of the flooding.

Pause the video while you read and then I will share some impacts with you.

Ready? Here's a list of impact.

Did you say any of these? Deaths, evacuations, damages to schools, roads, farms, or health centres.

Well done.

Now, whilst increased risk of flooding is a very real threat to some areas of the DRC, there are other areas with the opposite problem.

There are some areas in the DRC that are prone to suffering from severe water scarcity and sometimes drought.

Drought happens when there has been a lack of rainfall for a period of time, which means there will be a water shortage.

The areas of the DRC that are at risk of drought are expanding, and they're expanding because temperatures are increasing as a result of climate change.

An international water charity published a report in 2022 about this issue.

The report said, "Between 2011 and 2021, some African countries, such as South Africa and the DRC, were impacted by drought in up to 40% of their land.

Usually humid locations, such as the DRC, have been becoming increasingly dry over the last 40 years, and despite still receiving high rainfall, their people may be further impacted by drought over the coming decade." So we can see that climate change is causing some real extremes in weather in the DRC.

Weather variations and increased frequencies of downpours and drought, they mean that developing and sustaining agriculture, farming, in the DRC is very challenging indeed.

Floods can come along and wipe out entire crops.

That means that all of that potential food supply is gone, it means that farmers' hard work and time has been lost, and they have lost their income from that crop as well.

It's believed that up to 28 million people in the DRC regularly face serious food insecurity, and this is mainly as a result of the extreme weather events that are happening there, which mean that farming is so challenging and can't be guaranteed.

You can see the shading on this map.

It represents the prevalence of food insecurity.

Areas that are shaded red are areas most at risk, 40% or more risk of food insecurity.

And that, as you can see, sadly covers most of the DRC.

Areas that are orange have 30 to 40% food insecurity.

And then the small area that is yellow has 10 to 20% food insecurity, and that's mostly only around the capital city, Kinshasa.

Here's an activity for you.

I would like you to fill in the blanks in this paragraph.

You can choose your words from the word bank below.

Pause the video to complete the activity and then I will share the answers with you.

Ready? Okay, let's take a look at the answers.

Food insecurity is increasing in the DRC because farming is challenging.

Okay, so two blanks in the first sentence there.

Crops can be destroyed because of serious flooding or extreme heat, leading to drought.

Well done.

Okay, let's have a look now at the activity for this section of the lesson, Task B.

Climate change is causing food insecurity for the people of the DRC.

I'd like to know whether you agree or disagree with that statement.

I would like you to put a cross on that line to show how far you agree or disagree.

If you totally agree or disagree, put your cross at either end.

If you're not sure if you agree or disagree, your cross should go in the middle.

If you mostly agree or mostly disagree, then put your cross accordingly on one side or the other.

I would then like you to state your opinion.

That means saying whether you agree, disagree, or partly agree, whatever you've decided with the statements.

And third, I would like you to justify your opinion.

That means I would like you to use information you know about climate change and agriculture, and I would like you to try and use place-specific examples to justify what you're saying.

Okay, pause the video now.

You can work with a partner or in a group if you wish.

And you can look back at the information in the lesson to help you.

When you come back, I'll share some examples with you.

Ready? Okay, let's take a look.

Firstly, I have put my cross here mostly towards agree, not totally agree, but I definitely agree to a great extent.

I strongly agree with the statement.

There's me stating my opinion.

And now to justify my opinion, I have said, climate change means that temperatures are increasing, which can lead to droughts.

It also means that torrential rain is happening more and more often, which can lead to floods.

Extreme weather like this means that agriculture is challenging.

Farmers face difficulties as a result of weather events.

Floods can destroy all the crops or even cause the deaths of farm animals.

Drought and heat waves can cause crops to wither, animals to die, and make people unable to work on the farm.

If farmers lose crops, then there's a reduction in food supply.

People may not have enough food or know when they will next get food.

This is food insecurity, and it is a result of climate change in my opinion.

Did you share some similar ideas? Well done.

You worked really hard to complete that task.

Let's move into the final part of this lesson now and think about climate action that's taking place in the DRC.

We mentioned that the rainforest of the DRC is an important carbon sink because of the amount of carbon dioxide it removes from our atmosphere.

It's important to take carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere because it's contributing to the enhanced greenhouse effect.

Now, the greenhouse effect by itself is a natural occurrence.

The problem is that humans are making it happen much more strongly all the time, and that's been happening ever since the Industrial Revolution.

That's when we started building factories.

We created machines.

We started burning fuel.

We started polluting the atmosphere and changing its composition.

We've been releasing greenhouse gases, especially carbon dioxide, into the air.

And the more greenhouse gases that there are in the atmosphere, the more heat the atmosphere traps.

This is why it's not only local impacts that are felt when rainforests like the Congo are deforested.

There are far-reaching implications felt all around the planet.

The global carbon cycle relies on carbon sinks to balance out the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere, but that is changing because of deforestation.

This combination of more and more CO2 in the atmosphere and the reduction of carbon sinks means that around the world, the amount of carbon in the atmosphere is only increasing, as we can see here by the upward trend in this graph.

The graph shows that between 1960 and 2020, we have increased amounts of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

We have just short of 320 parts per million in 1960, and then we increased all the way up by more than a hundred parts per million to 420 in 2020.

Time for a learning check.

Is it true or false to say that deforestation only affects climate in the DRC? It has no impact anywhere else in the world.

This is of course false.

It's false because deforestation is causing the loss of the world's carbon sinks, so deforestation in the DRC is causing the loss of a carbon sink, being the Congo rainforest.

This means that there is more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, and that can only lead to increased global climate change.

Climate action is when people are proactive in trying to combat the effects of climate change.

Climate action at a local level in places like the DRC is important for protecting the planet at a global level.

It really is true that what we can do locally can impact us globally.

International campaigns, intervention, and support are also crucial for the global environmental health of our planet.

So, for that reason, there are lots and lots of charities, international academic organisations, and scientific bodies who work together to promote climate action and protect the rainforest in places like the DRC.

So let's look at some examples.

One example is called the International Gorilla Conservation Programme.

This was set up specifically by a very famous conservationist, a lady called Dian Fossey.

And the aim of this charity is to protect the habitat of an endangered species called the mountain gorilla.

We can see a baby gorilla here in this photograph.

Dian Fossey travelled to the DRC, and she was so incensed by the poaching that was going on and the endangerment of these beautiful animals that she stayed there and set up this charity to look after them.

There are many other organisations as well that are encouraging climate action and helping to protect precious biomes and habitats like the rainforest, for example, the UN, the United Nations, the Africa Climate and Environment Foundation, and conservation groups such as the Rainforest Trust, the World Wildlife Fund, and Rainforest Rescue.

There are many, many others.

And the reason there are so many is because this is such an important, massive issue as well, so it takes lots of hands and lots of people to get involved in many different projects to really generate results for our future.

Here are Izzy and Sam having a conversation about climate action.

Who do you think is correct? Sam says, "It's really important for the DRC to get involved with climate action and protect the rainforest or the whole planet could suffer." Izzy says, "It doesn't matter what happens in the DRC really because climate change will just keep happening." Who do you think is correct? Are you ready? It's a little tricky, this one, isn't it, because I think I can see that they both have valid points.

But I would say that Sam is correct.

It does matter and it is important for the DRC to be involved with climate action and protecting the rainforest because the whole planet is suffering as a direct result of deforestation.

Let's move on now to Task C, the last task for this lesson, which is gonna bring together all of your learning from today.

You can see two categories in the box at the bottom there.

Category one is forests and biodiversity in the DRC, and the second category is people and food in the DRC.

I would like you to choose one of them for this task.

So you can either write about forests and biodiversity or people and food.

I would like you to write a report for me about how and why they contribute to and are impacted by climate change.

You should include a paragraph about what is being done to combat the issues you've described.

Pause the video while you complete the task.

Look back through all the resources from this lesson to help you.

Use the internet if you wish, but do make sure that you can trust your sources if you do so.

Pause the video now.

And when you come back, I will share an example with you.

Finished? Good job.

I'm going to show you an example for each category, so don't worry if you haven't chosen forests.

I will also show you an example for people and food.

So forests and biodiversity in the DRC are severely impacted by climate change.

Temperatures are rising, and this leads to more frequent extreme weather events.

So there are more floods, more droughts, more heat waves.

Rainforests experience deforestation, and this is increasing every single year.

This means that the forest is shrinking.

Tropical rainforests have huge biodiversity, but as the rainforest habitats are lost, it's more and more at risk.

Deforestation contributes to climate change because there are fewer trees absorbing the carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

And if you chose people and food.

The people of the DRC are impacted negatively by climate change.

Temperatures are rising, and this leads to more frequent weather events.

So there are more floods, more droughts, and more heat waves.

This puts their homes and businesses at risk, for example, by being destroyed by flooding.

Agriculture is hit hard by climate change because the weather is unpredictable, and extreme weather can destroy crops and lead to the death of farm animals.

This means that food produced by farmers is gone.

Reduced food supply then impact people who don't have enough to eat, causing food insecurity.

Well done.

Now this lesson contained a lot of information about climate change and how it is linked to and how it impacts the DRC.

We know that it is causing rising temperatures, extreme weather, and habitat loss, amongst many other aspects in the DRC.

Deforestation reduces the rainforests' ability to serve as a carbon sink and absorb carbon dioxide.

And flooding and droughts as a result of climate change are having a great impact on agriculture and food security in the DRC.

Climate action in the DRC and internationally is absolutely crucial, and we all need to play our role in global environmental health.

Thank you for joining me today.

Thank you for listening so well and working so hard on all of those activities.

I hope you found this an interesting lesson.

And I will see you again next time for another interesting lesson about the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Bye for now.