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I agree that the most important aspect is to focus on the more hopeful solutions at the end of the movie. Key in moving forward.
I thought the Climate aid video could be great to show a class but only after the necessary preparation was done beforehand. It’s quite distressing and even a sixth class would need to properly readied, usually this kind of conversation can happen at the end of the school year.
I’m always careful not to just bombard students with the harsh realities of their futures, it can overwhelm and demotivate, giving a sense of hopelessness. I would not show them the film “Home” for example. It is a thorough and beautifully shot catalogue of some of humanity devastation of the planet, ushering in an extinction event and a climate shift the speed of which has never been seen. It also doesn’t offer as much hope as most other climate documentaries I’ve seen, giving a brief but encouraging 10 minutes of hope at the end. I would choose one with more for students. Having said that it would be a great one to recommend to some climate sceptical co-workers or even parents as it doesn’t hold back at all in it’s condemnation of the inaction and action of the world whilst also displaying it’s beauty in dramatic scale.
I think the prior knowledge aspect would be great since children these days already know so much about the environment, could use a KWL to add to that as well.
Using real world experiences like the smog is not only great for basing these ideas in reality and personal stories but also hope that if the smog can be improved, then so can other environmental issues!
I think activity three provides excellent resources to structure a climate change lesson around. I think the paxi video is a great example of how to make educational videos for kids, suitable for a fairly broad age range, informative but not overly detailed or wordy. This could be paired with an activity measuring temperatures inside and outside homemade greenhouses (using clear plastic or old lunchboxes).
The Teal tool is a fantastic resource which I will definitely be incorporating next year. It is great for showing real world measurable changes in climate factors compared to ones that aren’t affected as much by human activity. It also can be a hopeful tool when comparing the emissions and change in just a few decades and how quickly things can be turned around. This would pair well with any lesson on climate, with lessons on change over time in history and with measures in maths. With an older class you could ask them to research how places have changed over time like deserts or glaciers and link it back to the tool and its data. I think this tool would provide great opportunities for discovery learning as it doesn’t make any assumptions or links it just provides data which would give ample chances for students to reach their own conclusions.
Comparing to the actual weather forecast is a great idea and you could link that to estimating and probability very easily.
It can be difficult to focus some of the early learning around STEM but it’s good to remember that there are a lot of links in the everyday activities like building blocks or sand or structured play in general, that’s before you even get to the lessons.
Reading the Unravelling STEM paper was immediately useful for me for properly defining STEM (which I didn’t fully understand) and then also useful for reminding me how often I implement STEM education in my lessons and everyday teaching and how to implement it more often.
Activity 1 is important as it is a very unambiguous way of defining weather which misunderstood by a surprising number of people. This definition is also key to combat the misinformation surrounding climate change such as “it’s cold now how can the world be heating up?”.
Activity 2 is great for implementing STEM principles since you have a piece of technology (the thermometer) and Mathematics. I find that doing weather measurement over time is great for giving the class a sense of scope, the passing of time and seasonal changes. This could be expanded on further with children “engineering” better thermometers, rain/wind measurement devices and testing hypotheses as well.
I enjoyed the module as a whole, the Nose in the sky activity of actually getting outside and feeling what the weather is like is so simple and yet it is such a good reminder to actually incorporate the senses into lessons.