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Year 8

Impact of climate change on sea levels

I can explain how global warming can cause sea levels to rise

icon-background-square
New
New
Year 8

Impact of climate change on sea levels

I can explain how global warming can cause sea levels to rise

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Lesson details

Key learning points

  1. Greenhouse gases in the atmosphere keep it warmer than it would be without them.
  2. Heating from the Sun controls the average temperature of Earth.
  3. Increased temperatures melt ice sheets more quickly, moving more water into the sea, making sea levels rise.
  4. More sea ice melts in summer, but this does not add water to the sea or raise sea levels.
  5. Warmer oceans and seas expand, causing sea levels to rise.

Keywords

  • Global warming - the increase in Earth’s average surface temperature

  • Sea level - the average level of the surface of the sea

  • Ice sheets - thick layers of permanent ice found on land

  • Glacier - a large mass of ice, moving very slowly downhill because of the gravitational force acting on it

  • Sea ice - floating ice, formed of frozen sea water

Common misconception

Melting icebergs and sea ice cause sea levels to rise.

A detailed explanation of the anomalous properties of ice is not appropirate for most pupils at this stage. Instead, draw attention to water taking up exactly the same space as the part of a floating iceberg that is underwater.


To help you plan your year 8 science lesson on: Impact of climate change on sea levels, download all teaching resources for free and adapt to suit your pupils' needs...

Task B can be demonstrated, so long as a plastic bottle of water is frozen in advance. Another demo. involves adding ice to a beaker of water, marking the level of the water and allowing the ice to melt. The level of water should not change.
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This content is © Oak National Academy Limited (2025), licensed on Open Government Licence version 3.0 except where otherwise stated. See Oak's terms & conditions (Collection 2).

Lesson video

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6 Questions

Q1.
Match the words about climate science to their definitions.
Correct Answer:global warming,increase in Earth’s average temperature
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increase in Earth’s average temperature

Correct Answer:greenhouse gas,a gas in the air that keep Earth warmer than it would be without them
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a gas in the air that keep Earth warmer than it would be without them

Correct Answer:global surface temperature,average temperature of all the places on Earth’s surface
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average temperature of all the places on Earth’s surface

Correct Answer:climate change,long term changes to weather patterns
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long term changes to weather patterns

Q2.
For how long have climate scientists being measuring Earth’s temperature?
a few decades
Correct answer: a few centuries
a few thousand years
hundreds of thousands of years
Q3.
What is the change in sea level that happens twice a day called?
Correct Answer: tide, tides, tidal
Q4.
What is the cause of global warming?
the Sun becoming hotter
Earth moving closer to the Sun
Earth’s surface getting hotter
Correct answer: more carbon dioxide in Earth’s atmosphere
Q5.
When did Earth’s global surface temperature start to rise quickly above its long-term average?
Correct answer: Following the industrial revolution (1850s)
Following the first world war (1920s)
Following the start of the space race (1960s)
Following the smartphone revolution (2000s)
Q6.
What would cause Earth’s global surface temperature to start to fall?
lower greenhouse gas emissions
Correct answer: lower levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere
higher greenhouse gas emissions
higher levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere

6 Questions

Q1.
How is the sea level measured?
tide gauge on a floating buoy
Correct answer: tide gauge on the shore
satellite photography
Correct answer: satellite radar
Q2.
What do satellite and tide gauge measurements show is happening to sea levels?
decreasing several centimetres each year
decreasing several millimetres each year
unchanging each year
Correct answer: increasing several millimetres each year
increasing several centimetres each year
Q3.
How many ice sheets are there on Earth?
one
Correct answer: two
several
many (more than ten)
Q4.
What is the name of a large mass of ice moving very slowly downhill due to the gravitational force acting on it.
Correct Answer: glacier
Q5.
What is not causing sea levels to rise?
melting ice from glaciers
Correct answer: melting ice from icebergs
melting ice from ice sheets
expansion of water in oceans
Q6.
What happens to particles of sea water that causes oceans to expand?
Correct answer: move more quickly
increase in size
Correct answer: bump into each other with more force
bump into each other less often