A changing planet

Lesson 2 – 20 minutes

Learning outcomes

• Understand Global Warming and Climate Change.
• Identify the impacts that Global Warming and Climate Change have on surf life saving.
  

Preparation

• 4 or 5 newspaper articles that refer to events that may have been triggered by climate change, i.e. a large flood.
• Whiteboard and markers (optional).
  

Discuss

Start by introducing the concepts of Global Warming and Climate Change:

WHAT IS GLOBAL WARMING AND CLIMATE CHANGE?

• Global Warming – An overall warming of the planet, based on average temperature over the entire surface. Effects include: rising sea levels, glacier retreating, arctic shrinkage.
• Climate Change – Changes in regional climate characteristics, including temperature, humidity, rainfall, wind, and severe weather events.
  

WHAT ARE THE CAUSES OF GLOBAL WARMING AND CLIMATE CHANGE?

• Response to external forces, including variations in its orbit around the sun, changes in solar luminosity and volcanic eruptions etc.
• Atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations (most commonly known cause through media reporting).
• Human activity generates excess greenhouse gases (like Carbon Dioxide), i.e. burning of fossil fuels, population growth, more cars/trucks on road, destruction of forests etc.

Activity 1

1. Introduce your newspaper articles on events that may have been triggered by climate change and/or global warming. Discuss these articles in relation to:
   1. What causes them?
   2. Is it a common event or random severe weather event?
   3. What effect they have on people/society/communities, etc.?
2. Break the participants into small groups; give each group a piece of butchers paper and pens. Assign an adult parent/helper to each group.
3. Write up on a whiteboard/butchers paper the following questions:
   1. How will rising seas levels impact our role as surf lifesavers? (the beach will get smaller or disappear, new beached could be formed, etc).
   2. How will rising sea levels impact the surf clubs from which we operate? (the sea could reach the clubs and force the clubs to relocate, etc).
   3. How will surf life saving need to adapt to a changing climate? (look at the ways we operate, the kind of rescue support we might get involved in, i.e. helping in floods, etc).
   4. How can we best be prepared to play a role in extreme weather events as a surf lifesaver? (prepare for these events by meeting and discussing them, having equipment that can deal with extreme conditions etc).

Allow each group 10min to discuss these questions amongst themselves and prepare answers which they can then discuss with the group.