Teaching Climate

Learners research the effects of melting sea ice in the Bering Sea Ecosystem. They create research proposals to earn a place on the scientific research vessel Healy and present their findings and proposals to a Research Board committee.

This activity is the last part in a series called 'Our Hungry Planet.' Students will use their understanding of food systems to choose a topic related to food system issues at different scales (classroom, school, city, extracurricular groups) and then design a solution.

In this resource, students will investigate impacts of a warming climate on sugar maple and paper birch, two trees of special importance to the Lake Superior Ojibwe. Making maple sugar and harvesting birch bark are cultural practices that occur in the spring. As students work through this unit, they will consider how climate change is affecting the sustainability of these tree species and the activities and traditions they may enjoy.

In this activity, students will investigate impacts of a warming climate on cold and cool water fish species in Wisconsin. They will also explore how fishing is an important source of food and cultural practice for the Lake Superior Ojibwe. Students are encouraged to consider how climate change can affect culture and design a project to take action.

This lesson will help students understand water use in food production and ways to use less water.

This resource from MIT includes a 14-minute podcast on the relationship between agriculture and climate change from a NASA scientist, and additional activities that support an understanding of using maps and case-studies from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) to understand agroecology concepts. Students learn about how farmers are changing land-use practices to have a less negative impact on climate change, and how climate change may alter the nutritional quality of crops.

Students use primary resources to investigate three case studies of environmental change, including how the combined effects of sea level rise and sinking land are projected to impact the Louisiana coast this century, how hurricanes affect the coast, and how fisheries are impacted due to environmental change.

This lesson guides students to connect the PBS Adaptation video series on climate adaptation to their own community. Students describe their community, identify climate impacts faced by their community, research how their community is adapting to those impacts, and then create a digital story about what they found.

In this video, learn how communities in the arid high-mountain region of Ladakh rely on glacial water to feed streams and water crops during the spring and summer months. Global warming is dramatically reshaping the future of these areas. Meet a Ladakhi teacher and engineer who devised a method to capture and store glacial runoff into magnificent ice pyramids that are used as water resources throughout the summer and during peak agricultural months.

In this activity, students listen to a podcast and then investigate causes of and solutions to food waste, plant-based recipes to get excited about, and the diversity and variety of heirloom foods.