Climate change occurs when the climate temperature does not remain consistent (May, 2017). Climate change is a broad topic which covers areas such as global warming, greenhouse gases, fossil fuels and carbon dioxide for example. Before the session on climate change I had no idea just how badly climate change is affecting our earth. After this session it was horrifying to see just how many things us humans actually have a huge affect on the climate change just purely by the food that we eat or the types of cars that we drive on a daily basis.
Climate change affects things such as agriculture as our crops are starting to stop growing. This can cause huge issues within society as without any crops there is no food to produce for ourselves to buy. Climate change can also have an affect on our society as the rising increase in global temperatures can also be know as Global Warming. For example, 2016 was ranked as the warmest year on record due to global warming (Shaftel,2019). People do understand that global warming exists however there isn’t a lot we can do to prevent it.
Politics and local governments have started to take action on climate change and global warming. They can do things such as set new policies for the general public to follow in order to protect the earths climate. It is the governments job to teach the public what action that they can take at a local level.
The Scottish Government created the Climate Change Act 2009. They set a target for 2050 to reduce climate change completely. The aims of the act are things such as the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, make provision about reduction and recycling of waste and giving advice to Scottish Ministers relating to climate change (Scottish Parliament). This shows the general public the positive actions the local governments are beginning to take to reduce climate change for our earth.
In groups we worked together with our peers to become our own political party. Within this group we had to decide what cases of climate change where the most important within our community and had to address what one we thought should be completed first. This highlighted different opinions about climate change and what actions our government should take in order to fulfill these issues. Within this tasked I gained multiple skills such as teamwork, critical thinking and also problem solving whilst working with my peers.
Our science workshop again linked to climate change. We took part in various activities that allowed us to create fabulous resources for pupils within our classroom that educates them whilst having fun.
One activity was putting food colouring into different water jugs. Blue colouring went into the cold water and red went into the hot water. You then had to put the cups of food colouring into a tank of water and watch the two colours come together. This taught children how hot and cold air are different but create a wind when they come together. It truly amazed me how a small activity such as this taught pupils about teamwork skills and also broadened their knowledge of the world and how climate change can impact things as simple as our weather!
Another experiment was to create a tornado by using a jar filled with hot water, washing up liquid and green food colouring. The aim was to move your arm in a specific motion so that you could create tornado in the jar. This allowed pupils to gain problem solving skills as you had to find the correct arm movement in order to create the tornado and they successfully learned about tornados and how they were made.
I took part in the WWF footprint calculator by completing a survey based on my day to day life. It focuses on food, travel, stuff and home life to be exact. After I took part in the footprint calculator it really indicated to me how much influence I actually have on the environment and climate change. It educated me in ways which I can actually try and reduce certain things that I do on a daily basis to protect the environment from harm in the future.
Overall, my thoughts on climate change have surely changed after the weeks session. I had many misconceptions about the importance of climate change and never really thought it was a big deal. However, after this session it has opened my eyes to all the things the general public can do to try and reduce the growing rate of climate change on earth purely based on their day to day lives.
I gained knowledge of how I can help reduce the impact of climate change on the world by completing the WWF calculator. Also by looking at the Climate change Act (2009) I have now gained knowledge on what local governments are doing to reduce climate change.
I look forward to involving climate change in the classroom!
References
May, S. (2017) What is Climate Change? [Online] Available: https://www.nasa.gov/audience/forstudents/k-4/stories/nasa-knows/what-is-climate-change-k4.html . [Accessed: 1st October 2019]
Shaftel, H. (2019) Global Temperature [Online] Available: https://climate.nasa.gov/vital-signs/global-temperature/. [Accessed: 1st October 2019]
Climate Change (Scotland) Act 2009. (n.d) [Online] Available: http://www.legislation.gov.uk/asp/2009/12/notes/contents. [Accessed; 8th October 2019]
https://footprint.wwf.org.uk/?_ga=1.176985891.745195644.1442412124#/
