Welcome

Welcome to SchoolClimateScience.Info, a website that aims to provide teachers and students with the information they need to understand climate change – what it is, how human activity is causing it, and what we can do about it now, and in the future. 

So, what’s new? When Arrhenius published his ideas, cars and lorries and power stations had barely been invented and large-scale extraction of oil and gas had not begun. Global population was well below 2 billion; now it has passed 8 billion. The amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere back then was around 280 ppm (parts per million); now it is 420 ppm and rising alarmingly. Arrhenius could not foresee what was to come – indeed, it is only since the 1980s that scientists and politicians have begun to sit up and take notice! We are now seeing a real increase in storms and droughts, floods and wildfires, and beginning to understand that here is a problem that we urgently need to tackle. 

The future is not all gloom and doom!

Not long ago, I read a book that changed my perspective on Climate Change. As a science educator, I used to feel that we were failing young people by not teaching them effectively about how our climate is changing as a result of human activity. Despite many concerned voices, especially from young people like Greta Thunberg, the concerns of climate scientists seemed, for many years, to go unheard and, despite worthy resolutions at Climate Summits, seemed to be mostly ignored by industries chasing higher profits and politicians chasing votes. Maybe this is not surprising - who wants to listen to tales of future gloom and doom, especially when there seem to be more urgent things to worry about.

Recently, however, with record temperatures, droughts, wildfires, hurricanes, rainstorms and floods occupying increasing news coverage, and costing governments ever more money, attitudes are beginning to change. But is it too late to stop climate change? In the sense that it's already happening, yes, but in the sense that we can avoid, or mitigate, or revese its worst effects, the answer is a resounding No! The book I’ve referred to is called “Not the End of the World” by Hannah Ritchie*. She radiates uplifting optimism about humanity’s ability to solve global problems. This, as she herself says, is not “blind” optimism, nor does it shy away from the scale of the problems presented by climate change. Nor does it ignore the fact that we need to move much faster in order to mitigate its worsening effects. On the contrary, she bases her arguments on what humans have already achieved in many different spheres, on what we know is possible, and on what we most certainly can achieve if we work towards a common goal.

Her book begins by looking at surveys that suggest many young people around the world feel weighed down by mounting bad news, not just about Earth’s climate, but about natural disasters, disease, famine, and so on; but she also points out that many of our perceptions are actually false! With modern weather forecasting and flood mitigation, for example, the number of people killed in natural disasters per decade has actually reduced from about 5 million in the 1930s, to under 200,000 in the last decade - a period during which population has more than doubled!

       Similarly, better sanitation, nutrition, clean water, vaccines & antibiotics have hugely reduced global child mortality over the last century or so. Life expectancy has increased, hunger and poverty have decreased (although famines and wars still cause far too much), and education - particularly for girls - has (with a few exceptions) undergone huge improvement around the world.  

Many countries have been highly successful in tackling urban air pollution (including Britain in the 1950s and China in the last decade or so), whilst depletion of atmospheric ozone in the late 20th Century (the “ozone hole”) due to use of chemicals called chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) in refrigerators and aerosols, has now been almost entirely reversed since they were banned. All these achievements should give us real hope for dealing with climate change.

Another common misconception that Hannah Ritchie’s book debunks, is that we are all using more and more energy - and so producing more greenhouse gases - to run all our modern devices and appliances. The reality is different: most of these electrical devices consume relatively little energy, and their carbon footprints continue to decrease as we switch to more sustainable means of power generation. Incidentally, the global switch to solar and wind power is today driven by rapidly-falling costs as “green” energy becomes cost-competitive with fossil fuels! 

Your grandparents, often living in uninsulated homes and reliant on coal-fired power, had typical carbon footprints of around 11 tonnes of CO₂ per year; yours is well under than half that. Still far too much, as we drive toward "Net Zero", but per capita production of greenhouse gases is already falling dramatically. Net Zero is achievable!

*Hannah Ritchie is an Earth Science graduate who is now a Senior Researcher in Global Development at Oxford University and an Editor for the publication “Our World in Data” (https://ourworldindata.org/). Her book goes on to look at human effects on the environment, through deforestation & agriculture resulting in loss of biodiversity and also our effects on the marine environment through over-fishing, plastic pollution, ocean warming & acidification. In each case she debunks myths and shows us ways forward. I highly recommend this book for anyone suffering from "Climate Gloom"!

This website will look at many of the ways that we can (and must) accelerate reductions in greenhouse gases (GHGs) so as to avoid the worst effects of climate change, including changes to how we get around, how (and what) we eat, how we build and heat our homes & workplaces… and much more. It will try to to describe correctly how climate change works but also (and more importantly), to explain ways in which we can tackle its main causes and mitigate its effects. Both of these involve a lot of science & engineering, and researching those solutions has proved both enlightening and fun. But simply understanding climate change, or being aware that solutions are (at least in theory) possible, does little to actually tackle the issue: for that, we need to truly believe that we can implement those solutions - and understand that we all have roles to play. 

At time of writing, the school curriculum in UK seems to cover climate change in a rather piecemeal way across several subjects, leaving students to make the connections needed to understand issues clearly. Many people are now arguing for reform of the way we address climate change across the school curriculum, especially in science & technology. Within this website are various Presentations (Google slides & Powerpoint) that attempt to explain Global Warming and Climate Change in a more "joined up" way, as well as considering how we can tackle Climate Change and achieve Net Zero emissions. They can be downloaded and edited for classroom use. There are also quizzes, a printable Climate Guide, web links, teaching resources and other materials which will doubtless be added to, hopefully with the help of other people’s contributions, too. 

The 'Links' page contains essential sources of information on climate change, such as the IPCC (International Panel on Climate Change) and UNFCCC (United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change), and also links to sources of Educational material about climate change. Reliable news articles about this topic appear with increasing frequency, for example, on the BBC News or Sky News websites; it is also worth keeping an eye out on independent news media like Carbon Brief or The Conversation. 

The following short video, Climate Change: The Causes from Teachers' TV (2007); is now rather outdated, but it still gives a clear picture of the causes and mechanisms of climate change in simple terms. The Climate Guide in this website gives more detail. 

Note: The following outlines the Secondary curriculum (2024) regarding climate change; mainly for teachers!

Climate Change in the National Curriculum (England & Wales):

Originally devised in 1987, the National Curriculm was never written with the (then distant) threat of Climate Change in mind. Relevant curriculum statements are rather piecemeal; divided largely between the Science and Georaphy curricula. 

The list below includes relevant statements in KS3 & 4 Science listed in the linked document (May, 2015); hopefully, this list will undergo some important revision in the not-too-distant future. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/national-curriculum-in-england-science-programmes-of-study/national-curriculum-in-england-science-programmes-of-study. 

Key Stage 3: Biology – Materials Cycles & Energy

·     Photosynthesis: reactants & products, word summary for photosynthesis

·    dependence of almost all life on Earth on the ability of photosynthetic organisms... to use sunlight to build organic molecules... and to maintain levels of oxygen and carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

·    Cellular Respiration: aerobic & anaerobic respiration in living organisms, including the breakdown of organic molecules to enable all the other chemical processes necessary for life. 

·    Word summaries for aerobic & anaerobic respiration. (etc. etc.) 

                        – Interactions and Interdependencies

·     Relationships in Ecosystems: interdependence of organisms in ecosystems (food webs, pollination &c)

Key Stage 3: Chemistry - Earth and atmosphere

·     the composition of the Earth 

·     the structure of the Earth 

·     the rock cycle and the formation of igneous, sedimentary and metamorphic rocks

·     Earth as a source of limited resources and the efficacy of recycling

·     the composition of the atmosphere

·     the production of carbon dioxide by human activity and the impact on climate

Key Stage 3: Physics –

·     Energy: comparing amounts of energy transferred

·                    fuels & energy resources (very non-specific)

·     Energy Transfers: Heating & thermal equilibrium... heat transfer through conduction & radiation (but NOT convection!)

·     Energy in Matter: Changes with temperature in motion & spacing of particles (nearly convection!?) !) 

·     Space Physics: The seasons and the Earth’s tilt, day length at different times of year in different hemispheres

Key Stage 4: Biology – Cell Biology

·     importance of cellular respiration, aerobic & anaerobic (as KS3) 

·     Photosynthesis as a key process for food production

·     Ecosystems: the role of micro-organisms in cycling materials through an ecoststem

Key Stage 4: Chemistry – Earth and atmospheric science

·     evidence for composition and evolution of the Earth’s atmosphere since its formation

·     evidence, and uncertainties in evidence, for additional anthropogenic causes of climate change*

·     potential effects of, and mitigation of, increased levels of carbon dioxide and methane on Earth’s climate

·     common atmospheric pollutants: sulphur dioxide, oxides of nitrogen, particulates and their sources

·     the Earth’s water resources and obtaining potable water 

Key Stage 4: Physics – Energy

·     conservation of energy in a closed system

·     calculating energy efficiency for any energy transfers

·     renewable and non-renewable energy sources used on Earth; changes in how these are used.

                       Physics – The Structure of Matter

·     relating models of arrangements & motions of molecules in solids, liquids & gases to their densities

·     melting, evaporation & sublimation as reversible changes

·     calculating energy changes involved on heating - [including Specific Heat Capacity & Specific Latent Heat]

The various Science Specifications at GCSE appear rather variable in terms of the emphasis placed on climate-related topics; the following are general observations only:

1. Content about climate change is largely limited to Chemistry Specifications (or Topics within General Science Specs), but none seem to include any attempt to explain how the greenhouse effect actually works. There is little clear distinction between the 'natural' greenhouse effect (in which the role of water vapour is often ignored) and the 'enhanced' greenhouse effect due to human activity. In the latter context, only CO2 is consistently mentioned, although methane (CH4) is included in some specifications - usually suggesting agriculture (?cattle) as its main source, but not sources like melting permafrost, or natural gas exploitation. None of the Specifications mention nitrous oxide (N2O) which, in 2015 (the most recent figure I could find), was estimated as 6% of anthropogenic GHG emissions (due to land clearance and agriculture), but is a far more powerful greenhouse gas than either CO2 or CH4 . 

2. Most Physics Specifications include some references to sustainability in electricity generation (i.e. some comparison of fossil fuels with renewables) but do not generally require any detail of the physics involved in renewable generation (or transmission) - missing some great oppotunities! Very few Specifications mentioned energy loss from buildings or, indeed, any other physics relevant to climate science. 

3. Biology Specifications all mention the Sun as the source of energy for photosynthesis, but little more; whilst the carbon cycle is usually covered in some way, the climate effects of decay processes that produce CO2, or (more especially) CH4 , are unclear, whilst in considering the nitrogen cycle, the nature of N2O as a greenhouse gas is not mentioned.

4. All Specifications mention "uncertainties in evidence" (see National Curriculum summary), one even elaborates as follows (the italics are mine): "many scientists believe that human activities will cause the temperature of Earth's atmosphere to increase... resulting in global climate change". I think that view is now very outdated.

5. There is very little mention in any of the Specifications about how we might actually tackle Climate Change, (other than references to renewable energy sources in Physics Specs) and little or no thought given to how the jobs market of the future might look as we switch to a greener economy. Hopefully this will change...  

The only other subject currently mandated to teach about climate change (in England & Wales) is Geography; even here, the topic seems to have been recently subsumed within a theme of "Interdependence". A quick look suggests that all Specifications include desciptions of the mechanism of atmospheric circulation and climate zones, and descibe evidence for climate change over recent geological time (glacial & interglacial episodes). However,  the role of the atmosphere and (especially) oceans in global heat distribtion is not clearly defined, with no real explanation of convection or thermal capacity. Nor does there seem to be a requirement to distinguish or explain natural and anthropogenic climate change. Just 40% of school students take Geography to GCSE (all must take Science). A tiny number of students might also study Climate change as part of a Geology GCSE or within a Natural History GCSE. 

On the bright side, a number of recent extra-curricular initiatives have received government support recently which, it is hoped, will help to encourage students to become more actively and practically involved in tackling climate change in their communities; such as the National Education Nature Park & Climate Action Awards: www.educationnaturepark.org.uk  A number of other organisations working with schools are mentioned in the links section of this website. Last, but by no means least, the new government has, in 2024, launched a major Curriculum Review in which, it is hoped, Climate Education will be closely re-examined and further developed.