Category: CPD

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Climate Change CPD Research Schools Teaching

Panel Discussion: Climate Literacy in 2022 School Leavers

Climate Literacy panel discussion

Join experts from the worlds of education policy and climate science to explore the findings of a climate literacy survey conducted earlier this year on the Royal Meteorological Society’s behalf by Ipsos MORI as part of their Young Person’s Omnibus survey.

The questions asked in the survey were developed by the Royal Meteorological Society, in conjunction with many of their members, including authors of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report, to ensure that they give a fair assessment of climate literacy. The questions will remain relevant in years to come as we hope to repeat the survey annually to assess the impact of interventions on climate change education in schools.

The ongoing results of the survey will inform the work of the Royal Meteorological Society, supporting teachers of all subjects to make use of the opportunities within the current curricula and exam specifications to teach climate change.

This free 50-minute virtual event will include an overview of the findings of the survey, panel discussion and Q&A.

The panel will include:

  • Prof Andrew Charlton-Perez, Head of School of Mathematical, Physical and Computational Sciences, University of Reading and Professor of Meteorology
  • Dr Sylvia Knight, Head of Education, Royal Meteorological Society
  • Dr Pippa Bailey, Head of Climate Change and Sustainability Practice, Ipsos MORI
  • Carl Ward, Chief Executive, City Learning Trust and Chair of the Foundation for Education Development 

 

Register for the Event
Categories
CPD Extreme weather Weather

5 Weather Websites to Keep an Eye on

Here are 5 (ish) websites which anyone teaching about weather may find useful: 

 

Earth.nullschool.net for current and past atmospheric and oceanic conditions

Met Office weather warnings

Met Office synoptic charts

Blitzortung for live, global lightning 

NASA for live, global rainfall 

NetWeather for radar images, will it snow and some satellite images

Zoom Earth for satellite images

Categories
Climate CPD Teaching Weather

Resource Wins GA Silver Award

Rob Gamesby collects GA silver award

We were delighted that our Weather and Climate Teachers’ Guide/ scheme of work for 11-14 geography was awarded a ‘silver’ by the Geographical Association at their conference in April.

“This excellent – and free – resource, accompanied by differentiated PowerPoints, is well-structured, informative, and fits some complex weather and climate topics into a digestible format. The judges felt it is an accessible resource that provides support for subject specialist and non-specialist teachers alike. They liked the examples that the authors used and the way it makes connections from one lesson to another, building the learning along the way.”

Photo credit: Geographical Association/Shaun Flannery 2022

Categories
Climate Change CPD

5 Climate Change Websites to Keep an Eye on

Here are 5 websites which anyone teaching about climate change may find useful: 

The IPCC website for the latest reports. 

Carbon Brief for current articles covering the latest developments in climate science, climate policy and energy policy. 

Gridwatch for live statistics showing UK energy production. 

The Global Carbon Atlas  to explore and visualize the most up-to-date data on carbon fluxes resulting from human activities and natural processes.

The Climate Action Tracker tracks international government climate action and measures it against the globally agreed Paris Agreement aim of “holding warming well below 2°C, and pursuing efforts to limit warming to 1.5°C.”

NOAA monthly reports on global climate/ extreme weather events. 

Categories
CPD Geography Schools

GeogPod podcast

geogpod

Sylvia Knight, Head of Education at the Royal Meteorological Society was in conversation with John Lyon for the Geographical Association’s GeogPod podcast series. Their conversation centres on the COP26, climate change. the IPCC and some of the resources teachers can use in the classroom. 

 
Categories
CPD Geography Schools Secondary

Resources Highly Commended by SAGT

SAGT award

We are delighted that our “Weather and Climate: a Teacher’s Guide” resource has been awarded a Highly Commended in the Book Category for this year’s Scottish Association of Geography Teachers (SAGT) Publishers’ Awards.

Categories
CPD Geography Teaching

Welsh Translation of Teachers’ Guide

welsh weather and climate

We are delighted to have been supported by the WJEC/ Eduqas, who have translated our Weather and Climate Teachers’ Guide for 11-14+ geography teaching into Welsh – Tywydd a Hinsawdd: Canllaw i Athrawon and made it available to schools for teaching across Wales. 

The full resource, together with background information for teachers and lesson resources can be found on MetLink. 

Categories
CPD

Free Online Weather CPD for teachers

rain or shine courseWe are delighted to announce that the 15th run of our very popular, free, online weather and climate subject knowledge course for geography teachers (A  level students and anyone else with an interest in the weather), Come Rain or Shine, starts today, 7th June 2021. The first 3 weeks are supported by mentors – so if you have any questions they will be seen and answered. 

This run of the course will also link to the Reading University Weather Forecasting Game. 

Access to the course is free for 5 weeks from whenever you start it – plenty of time to download all the resources. The course will now be always available, so if you miss the mentored period in June, you can always look at the comments and answers that others posted. 

The course will take roughly 12 hours in total to complete.

Learning Objectives of the course:

  • Interpret synoptic charts and use them to describe weather details such as wind speed and direction, precipitation and cloud cover.
  • Explore depressions and discover why they are so significant in mid-latitude locations such as the UK
  • Investigate the physical processes behind weather, such as warm air rising, cloud formation and the Coriolis effect with experiments you can do at home.
  • Record your local weather conditions and share your findings.
  • Reflect on the processes that affect the Earth’s atmosphere and therefore climate, both natural (volcanoes, orbit) and man-made (greenhouse gases).
  • Apply your understanding of mid-latitude weather systems to analyse weather data and images.
Categories
Books Climate Climate Change CPD Geography Microclimates Schools Secondary Teaching Weather

Weather and Climate: a Teachers’ Guide

Weather and Climate: a Teachers’ Guide

weather and climate teachers guideIn this teachers’ guide and the accompanying online teaching resources, we aim to give UK geography teachers all that they need to deliver relevant, engaging and thorough weather and climate lessons to 11–14+ year old students. They are not linked to any specific curriculum but should be easily adaptable to all.

The book is accompanied by high quality online background information/professional development resources for teachers.

 

 

 

The Royal Meteorological Society believes that:

  • all students should leave school with basic weather literacy that allows them to understand the weather that affects them, their leisure activities and the careers they choose to follow
  • every student should leave school with basic climate literacy that would enable them to engage with the messages put forward by the media or politicians and to make informed decisions about their own opportunities and responsibilities.

To this end, we have embedded a climate change thread throughout the online resources, showing its relevance to both weather and climate. An understanding of weather and climate is fundamental to an understanding of climate change.

There is a progression of knowledge through the topics, supported by review and assessment activities. The resources also progressively develop key geographical skills such as data, mapwork, GIS, fieldwork and critical thinking.

In this guide, we include common misconceptions which should be challenged in the classroom.

There are 20 topics or chapters. Across these, there are three threads or paths which can be taken through the online resources, depending on the teaching time available:

Basic weather: Weather in our lives, weather measurements, weather and climate, global atmospheric circulation, global climate zones, air masses, pressure and wind and water in the atmosphere

Climate: Weather and climate, global atmospheric circulation, global climate zones, past climate change, polar climate, hot deserts, changing global climate, UK climate, changing UK climate, the climate crisis

Extending weather: Anticyclones, depressions, microclimates, urban weather, tropical cyclones.

Many of the online teaching resources are available with standard or easier versions, as well as extension or alternative activities.

Find the scheme of work, teaching resources, background information for teachers, as well as the Teachers’ Guide (copies of which may be printed on request), here. 

All the online resources will be updated and revised regularly.

Categories
CPD Teaching

Come Rain or Shine: Teacher CPD Wins Award

We are delighted that our online weather and climate teacher CPD course “Come Rain or Shine” has received the EMS Outreach & Communication Award 2018.

FutureLearn is a leading Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) platform delivering online learning to participants around the world, free of charge. Running a course on this platform has been a key way for us to engage new and harder-to-reach audiences than could otherwise be reached, and to be able to develop course content that is interactive and engaging. The only cost to participants is associated with extending access to the course materials beyond the initial, free, 5 week period.

The Royal Meteorological Society partnered with the University of Reading to develop a three week course entitled ‘Come Rain or Shine’ which focusses on the processes and phenomena which govern UK weather. The content of the course was developed with the needs of UK secondary geography teachers in mind, however the course was open and very much of interest to all.

An online course to reach secondary geography teachers was needed because:

  • Changes to the National Curriculum and exam specifications in the last couple of years have increased the requirement for the teaching of weather and climate in schools.
  • The knowledge, skills and confidence of current UK geography teachers to teach weather and climate is currently very low, following decades of little weather and climate teaching in schools and
  • The model of teacher training is moving from Universities to individual schools, making
    knowledge update days with trainee teachers increasingly difficult to deliver.

The course ran twice in 2016, three times in 2017 and will run three times in 2018, requiring participants to spend around 3 hours per week studying the dynamic materials. These materials consist of a mix of written articles, videos, fieldwork activities and other practical exercises written by Dr. Sylvia Knight, Head of Education at the Royal Meteorological Society and Dr. Pete Inness, a lecturer at the Department of Meteorology at the University of Reading. Registered participants benefit from peer-to-peer support. In addition, during the three week periods, additional support is available from expert mentors from the University and the Society given through integrated discussion areas at each step of the course.
Participant numbers have been high: in June 2016 over 9000 people registered for the course, in October 2016 over 4000 registered and through 2017 over 10,000 registered.

Learning Outcomes for Participants:

  • Describe the weather features associated with depressions, anticyclones and the four main air masses which affect the UK.
  • Interpret a synoptic or weather chart, to provide details about wind speed and direction, precipitation and cloud cover.
  • Describe some of the physical processes which give rise to weather, such as convection, condensation, pressure gradients and the Coriolis force.
  • Investigate local weather conditions using readily available instruments.
  • Explain some of the processes which transfer energy through the Earth system, including the transient effects of volcanoes and changes in the Earth’s orbit, and how these processes relate to the Earth’s climate.
  • Apply their understanding of mid-latitude weather systems to the analysis of weather data and images.

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Weather and climate resources and events for teachers