Lesson 2: Investigating Local Climate Impacts

Give students the following scenario to discuss in small groups: It’s the year 2056 and a high school student asks you what this community was like when you were their age. Consider which aspects of the community might have changed due to climate change. 

• Prompt students to think of things such as: weather and seasons, water, food, transportation, housing, sports and recreation, local businesses, wildlife, agriculture, energy, public health, infrastructure. As students discuss what may have changed, encourage them to think not only about physical changes, but also about changes people may notice through long relationships with a place, such as changes in seasonal timing, plant or animal behavior, water availability, harvests, cultural practices, or opportunities to gather, fish, farm, or spend time on the land.

Explain to students: Climate change isn’t just a future problem or something happening somewhere else. It is already influencing the places where we live. But climate impacts aren’t experienced equally, and the reasons why are often connected to geography, infrastructure, economics, policy, and access to resources. Today we’re going to investigate our community’s climate story.

Before beginning the local climate inquiry, introduce the idea that climate change can be understood through multiple sources of knowledge and evidence.

• Scientific research, climate data, observations, lived experience, community knowledge, and Indigenous Knowledge can each help us understand different parts of environmental change.
• Indigenous Knowledge and Traditional Ecological Knowledge are developed through long-term relationships with place, observation, practice, and knowledge passed across generations. International organizations, including the United Nations, increasingly recognize the importance of Indigenous Knowledge in addressing global challenges. 
• As students investigate local climate impacts, encourage them to ask: What is changing? How do we know? Who holds knowledge about these changes?
• When learning from Indigenous Knowledge, use information that Indigenous communities and organizations have chosen to share publicly and respect the people, cultures, and places that knowledge comes from.

Consider sharing this examples of Indigenous world views and how Indigenous communities are addressing climate change in their own traditional and cultural ways:

• “Fighting to Keep Mexico’s Floating Farms Alive” (3:22)
• “Indigenous activists on tackling the climate crisis” (5:00). 
• Optional Discussion Question: 
  • What are some valuable lessons we can learn from Indigenous-led climate solutions?

Ask students: What’s the difference between a climate impact and a climate hazard? 

• Climate Hazard: A climate-related event or condition that has the potential to harm people, ecosystems, or communities.
  • Examples: extreme heat, drought, flooding, wildfires, and sea-level rise.
• Climate Impact: The effects or consequences of a climate hazard on people, ecosystems, infrastructure, or communities.
  • Examples: heat-related illness, crop failure, damaged homes and roads, loss of habitat, or water shortages.

Students should work individually or in small groups to investigate local climate issues using the following resources, and, where appropriate, local, Tribal, Indigenous, or community-based sources (and others as needed). 

• United States: Climate Central local climate impacts tool; CMRA Climate Hazards; Climate.us; NOAA Climate Impacts; NOAA Climate Explorer
• Global: ThinkHazard climate impacts tool; Native Lands Map
• For coastal areas: NOAA sea level rise map

Students complete LESSON 2: LOCAL CLIMATE ISSUES INQUIRY in their CIC SECONDARY STUDENT WORKBOOK.

• Identify 2-3 local climate hazards
• Investigate each impact by recording evidence, impacts, and questions
• Remind students to link their sources for any evidence they record! Full citations are required in CIC videos. 
• Questions to consider: 
  • Evidence: 
    • What is changing?
    • What evidence supports this?
    • Is the evidence based on historical data, projections, observations, lived experience, or all of the above?
    • What trends do you notice?
    • Do different sources help us understand different parts of the issue? How?
  • Impacts:
    • What could this mean for your community?
    • What infrastructure, ecosystems, or activities could be affected?
    • What might be the economic, environmental, or social consequences?
    • How could this impact your daily life, and how does that compare to how it impacts other parts of your community? 
  • Questions:
    • What don’t you know yet?
    • What additional information would you need to understand this issue?

Ask students: Look back at your entry point. What local climate impacts intersect with something you care about?

Students create a connection chain individually or in their CIC groups 

• Something I Care About → Climate Hazard(s) → Climate Impact(s) → Problem Worth Investigating
• Share some examples of connection chains or create them as a class:
  • Basketball → Extreme heat → Heat stress on outdoor athletes + effects on school sports → How can schools protect student athletes during increasingly hot conditions?
  • Food → Extreme heat + drought → Decreased local food production → How might changing climate conditions affect food access in our region?
  • Music festivals → Extreme heat + extreme storms → Heat-related impacts on outdoor events + attendees → How can outdoor events adapt to changing climate conditions?
• Students should workshop their connection chains with other groups and the whole class.

This activity asks students to work in groups to analyze why vulnerability to climate change differs in their own communities. 

As a class, create a list of the local climate hazards students researched earlier in the lesson. Then, assign one to each small group of students. 

• Examples of local hazards will vary and could include: Extreme heat, flooding, wildfire smoke, drought, extreme storms, etc.

Groups should use large chart paper to map out the following four factors for their assigned hazard: 

• Exposure– Who or what is physically exposed to the hazard?
• Sensitivity– Who or what could be more strongly affected?
• Resources– Who has the resources to prepare, adapt, or recover?
• Decision-making power– Who gets to influence decisions about how the community responds? Whose knowledge is recognized when decisions are made?

Have groups complete the following summary for their climate impact at the bottom of their chart paper: 

• Climate hazard: ______
• Most exposed: ______
• Most vulnerable: ______
• Resources available: ______
• Potentially overlooked: ______
• Why might impacts be unequal? ______

Hang the paper around the room and have students complete a gallery walk to provide feedback for each climate impact directly on the paper or using sticky notes. 

• Ask students: Where do you see evidence that climate impacts may not be distributed equally in our community?

Have students return to their local climate issues research in their CIC SECONDARY STUDENT WORKBOOK. They should then work individually or in their chosen CIC groups to select a local climate impact that connects to their entry point and complete the following wrap-up prompts: 

• My entry point
• Local climate hazard(s) connected to it
• People, places, and/or ecosystems impacted
• Why impacts may be unequal
• Questions I want to investigate: (How might we…?)
  • For the research questions, brainstorm some examples as a class or share the following: 
    • How might we help high school athletes stay safe during increasingly hot practices?
    • How might we increase access to shade in neighborhoods experiencing extreme heat?
    • How might our community reduce the impact of flooding on local businesses?
    • How might we help local pollinators adapt to changing seasonal conditions?

Explain to students that they are NOT developing a solution yet. The goal of this lesson was to find a local problem worth understanding and addressing.