Climate change and living sustainably
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Why this why now
The purpose of this unit is to give a brief introduction to the greenhouse effect, global warming and climate change using concrete ideas from topics covered through Y7 science lessons. It introduces pupils to evidence from climate science, to start addressing their questions about climate change in a clear, positive and relevant way. The key message is that climate change ‘is real, it’s us, it’s bad, there’s hope’. In the next climate change unit, the local actions considered here are used as stepping stones to understand how larger scale actions for tackling climate change can be delivered.
Prior knowledge requirements
- Organisms interact with the environment in which they live.
- Changes to the environment may make it harder for organisms to survive in a particular habitat.
- Each element has particular chemical properties.
- A compound may have different properties to each of the elements that it is made from.
- Heating a solid makes its particles vibrate more quickly.
- In thermal conductors, vibrating particles quickly cause the particles near to them to vibrate as well.
- In thermal insulators, it is hard for vibrating particles to cause the particles near to them to vibrate as well.
- Air is a good thermal insulator because it is a gas.
- Thermal insulators often contain trapped air.
Threads
Why this why now
The purpose of this unit is to give a brief introduction to the greenhouse effect, global warming and climate change using concrete ideas from topics covered through Y7 science lessons. It introduces pupils to evidence from climate science, to start addressing their questions about climate change in a clear, positive and relevant way. The key message is that climate change ‘is real, it’s us, it’s bad, there’s hope’. In the next climate change unit, the local actions considered here are used as stepping stones to understand how larger scale actions for tackling climate change can be delivered.
Prior knowledge requirements
- Organisms interact with the environment in which they live.
- Changes to the environment may make it harder for organisms to survive in a particular habitat.
- Each element has particular chemical properties.
- A compound may have different properties to each of the elements that it is made from.
- Heating a solid makes its particles vibrate more quickly.
- In thermal conductors, vibrating particles quickly cause the particles near to them to vibrate as well.
- In thermal insulators, it is hard for vibrating particles to cause the particles near to them to vibrate as well.
- Air is a good thermal insulator because it is a gas.
- Thermal insulators often contain trapped air.
Biology
Chemistry
Physics
Climate change and living sustainably
This unit introduces the greenhouse effect, global warming and the impact of climate change on weather events. It explores some actions that can be taken to use resources, and to live, in a sustainable way.
7 lessons in unit
slide decks, worksheet PDFs, quizzes and lesson overviews. You can select individual lessons from the Climate change and living sustainably unit and download the resources you need, or download the entire unit now. See every unit listed in our secondary science curriculum and discover more of our teaching resources for secondary science programmes.