Teacher sheet · Ages 10–11 · about 45–50 minutes
Climate and climate change
Lesson page: echoesof.science/school/climate/ages-10-11/ · Pupil worksheet: echoesof.science/school/climate/ages-10-11/print/
Learning aims
- Distinguish weather from climate and name the main climate zones.
- Explain the greenhouse effect and the main greenhouse gases.
- Describe evidence for warming (temperature, sea level, glaciers, sea ice).
- Show with a fair test that melting land ice, not floating ice, raises sea level.
Lesson plan
| Time | Activity |
|---|---|
| 5 min | Starter: weather or climate? Sort five sentences on the board. |
| 10 min | Read the text; show NASA's global temperature graph if available. |
| 20 min | Land ice or sea ice experiment (set up early so the ice can melt). |
| 5 min | Play Weather or climate? |
| 5 min | Quiz and read the results of the experiment. |
Materials for the experiment
- 2 identical clear plastic containers
- Modelling clay or a stone to make 'land'
- 8 ice cubes, all the same size
- Water
- A marker pen or sticky labels
- A ruler
Safety: Wipe up spills at once so nobody slips. Use plastic containers, not glass.
Common misconceptions
| Pupils may think… | Actually… |
|---|---|
| A cold winter shows there is no global warming. | One season is weather; climate change is about averages over decades across the whole Earth. |
| Melting sea ice is the main cause of sea level rise. | Floating ice does not raise sea level when it melts; melting land ice (and warming seawater) does. |
| The greenhouse effect is entirely bad. | It keeps the Earth warm enough for life; adding more greenhouse gases strengthens it. |
Worksheet answers
- Sunlight arrows passing through the air to the ground; heat arrows going up from the ground; some heat arrows trapped and sent back by a layer of greenhouse gases.
- Any two: about 1 °C warmer since the late 1800s; 2024 the hottest year on record; sea level up about 20 cm in the last century; glaciers shrinking; Arctic sea ice smaller and thinner.
- Container A (ice on land): the meltwater ran into the water and added to it. The floating ice in B already displaced its own weight of water.
- Without greenhouse gases the Earth would be too cold for life as we know it; extra CO₂ traps more heat, so the average temperature rises.
Quiz answers
- Over how many years is a climate usually measured? About 30 years. Climate is usually defined over 30 years.[1]
- What decides a place's climate zone most? Its latitude. Climate zones are divided mainly by latitude.[3]
- Which of these is a greenhouse gas? Carbon dioxide. Carbon dioxide traps heat in the atmosphere.[5]
- What has added most extra carbon dioxide to the air? Burning fossil fuels like coal and oil. Burning fossil fuels has increased CO₂ the most.[5]
- By about how much has the Earth's average surface temperature risen since the late 1800s? About 1 °C. About 1 °C, mostly since 1975.[6]
- Which melting ice raises the sea level? Ice on land, like glaciers. Floating ice does not raise the sea level when it melts; land ice does.[10]
Going further
Use the Met Office climate zone descriptions to find out which zone your own town is in. Then compare its climate with a town in another zone: average temperature in the coldest and warmest month, and rainfall.
Sources used in this lesson
- [1] What is climate? (Met Office (UK national weather service)): reliability High
- [2] What is the difference between weather and climate? (European Space Agency (ESA)): reliability High
- [3] Climate zones (Met Office (UK national weather service)): reliability High
- [4] What Is the Greenhouse Effect? (NASA Science for Kids): reliability High
- [5] The Causes of Climate Change (NASA Science): reliability High
- [6] Evidence of Climate Change (NASA Science): reliability High
- [7] World of Change: Global Temperatures (NASA Earth Observatory): reliability High
- [9] AR6 Synthesis Report: Summary for Policymakers (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)): reliability High
- [10] When Floating Ice Melts (lesson plan) (NASA My NASA Data, Langley Research Center): reliability High
- [11] Why ice sheets matter (National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC), University of Colorado): reliability High
Full list with links and a note on each source's reliability: echoesof.science/school/climate/sources/
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