STEP 1. Identify problem

It is important for the students to identify the climate change problem/challenge/issue to be solved through the mission. Therefore, with help from the teacher, the students must look at the local community in order to find the aim of the mission.

Your role as a teacher

 

In general

  • The teacher must accept that he/she does not know everything in the field in which students make their climate change mission.
  • The teacher should avoid correcting the student with direct answers, but instead make questions that will make the students think about/act towards a solution. The teacher guides the students.
  • The teacher provides opportunities for learning on demand.

Problem searching

The part ‘To identify problem’ starts with a problemsearching phase and ends with the exact problem that the mission should solve.

Therefore, firstly your students carry out an analysis of climate change related issues with a connection to the local area that concern your students. The students may look at their local community for identifying issues in which they can play a critical investigative role. Therefore, they have to leave the “safety zone” of the classroom. Creating the groups students with the same interests can be placed together.

Points for the students to think about

  • Which kind of local issues with a connection to climate change needs to be solved by a mission?
  • Why is addressing this topic important to my community?
  • Why is this topic important to me?

As a teacher, you could give your students some clues on interesting topics to investigate if the brainstorming of the group seems to be halted:

  • The biodiversity in the local area changing due to global warming, with various perspectives;  Lack of aesthetic values, lack of some key stone species can destroy the ecosystem and energy and matter circulation, lack of areas for recreation and mind-body balance, lack of pollinators (bees, butterflies, moths …) will cause problems in fruit growing. 
  • General precipitation changes causing crop failure
  • Changing rainfall patterns due to climate change that challenge drainage in the local area.
  • Extension of Pollen season causing longer and harder pollen allergy periods.

Recommendations and comments

 

- from the teachers in the project to teachers who would like to start working with Climate Change Education:

It’s a challenge to….”find really motivating missions, create a united team atmosphere, integrate all activities in the school timetable and in the subjects” (Teacher from Spain).

“Real climate change missions weren’t hard to tackle, because climate encompasses such a broad variety of topics” (Teacher from Lithuania).

“On this stage it is important to help students (if they are not certain what mission to choose) by asking research questions. The questions support students in searching for important problems which they directly experience in the local community. In our case it is the problem of the negative effects of rising temperatures resulting in seasonal droughts and floods” (Teacher from Poland)