To encourage discussion on coastal climate change adaptation, we have created a trio of teaching kits. The teaching kits are geared towards university and high-school students, and can be downloaded below.
Each teaching kit has a topic-specific focus, and includes links to research materials and discussion questions.
Activity 1: Now and Then
Click here for the teaching kit: Activity_1 Now and Then
Purpose: This activity will help students understand that environmental change can take place over decades. It emphasizes the importance of asking critical questions, and the value of learning from past experiences to shape future decisions. The activity also encourages students to recognize community members as holders of knowledge about local environmental conditions. This activity can be completed in an outdoor classroom setting.
Activity 2: Adaptive Stretching and Energy Transitions
Click here for the teaching kit: Activity_2 Adaptive Stretching
Purpose: This activity will help students to recognize that social norms guide many daily practices. It will encourage students to identify actions which are current ‘norms’ and consider how they might be altered in response to climate change. The theme of energy transitions has been chosen to contextualize the idea of climate change adaptation, and the activity encourages students to identify current energy usage norms, and consider how they can be altered.
Activity 3: Public Engagement and Coastal Erosion Data
Click here for the teaching kit: Activity_3 Public Engagement
Purpose: This activity will demonstrate how geological surveys can be used to document, analyze, and respond to coastal erosion. It will introduce students to the idea of ‘citizen science’ as a way of engaging the public in documenting and discussing climate change. The activity will also consider the potential for drone-based landscape analysis (via the Geological Survey of NL’s SketchFab site) as one form of geological data that can transform how we engage communities in climate change discussions.