In October 2025, Sylvia Knight, Head of Education at the RMetS, delivered a talk outlining the causes and impacts of ENSO to A level geography students for the Geographical Association in Northern Ireland.
With thanks to Niall Majury, the talk was recorded and can be viewed here.
We’ve been delighted to support Time for Geography to produce video content which is now live and being viewed as bookends to Time for Geography videos in school and university learning environments.
Using the Tools of Geography, Maths and Science to predict and prepare for our weather.
The RMetS careers video is also showcased as part of Time for Geography’s careers collection, where we feature titled videos aligned with career purpose and geography curriculum vocabulary.
Time for Geography have been working with a national community of inspiring geography/ geoscience industry leaders who care deeply about the future of their profession and recognise this unique, strategic opportunity to repair and future-proof the talent pipeline at this critical tipping point.
The 2025 United Nations Climate Change Conference, or Conference of the Parties of the UNFCCC, COP30, will be in Belém, Brazil, from 10th to 21st November 2025.
Key aims for the conference are to assess the progress signatories of the Paris Agreement have made towards reducing their greenhouse gas emissions, scaling up financing to developing country Parties to enable climate action and to launch an investment fund specifically to reward forest conservation in Tropical countries.
In order to help teachers engage students with what is occurring, we have developed two resources:
Geography is unique in its capacity to teach students about why and how climate change is happening, what the impacts of this are and how they vary across environments, places and people around the world, and how these impacts can be adapted to and mitigated against through actions locally and globally.
Geography’s integration of physical and human processes provides a distinctive curriculum context for the study of the interconnected aspects of climate change. However, underpinning all of this is an understanding of how weather and climate work, within the context of the whole climate system including the atmosphere, oceans, cryosphere and biosphere.
The physical processes which govern how weather and climate work depend on the concepts geography students will cover in their science lessons.
In a blog post for the Geographical Association and this summer’s Classroom Physics, Sylvia Knight looks at the synergies between science and geography and how the choice of contexts and examples in the former, and consistent vocabulary and explanations between the two can help develop students’ understanding and reinforce learning.
Back in 2021 we released the Weather and Climate Teachers’ guide, accompanied by resources for the classroom and teacher CPD.
We are now happy to announce that the CPD ‘More For Teachers’ documents are now available as a series of short films on our YouTube channel.
The videos, like the guide, are aimed at secondary geography teachers to support the delivery of weather and climate lessons to 11–14+ year old students. They are not linked to any specific curriculum and should support teaching across all of the UK.
See the first video here:
We are delighted to publish a new collection of classroom resources, aimed at 14-16 (GCSE) geography teachers and students, exploring climate change, extreme weather, and adaptation to it.
Some of the resources in the collection were already available on MetLink, but most have been created for us by Rob Gamesby (Cool Geography) and are based on RMetS funded research, just completed, by Jiashu Zhu at Cambridge University. The research focusses on the causes, impacts and effectiveness of adaptation measures to river flooding in Sheffield, Extreme heat (heatwaves) in Cambridge and monsoon flooding in Pakistan.
The RMetS education team have written a guest blog for Geography Southwest. Geography Southwest is a project to promote geographical education in the South West of England and beyond by creating and offering a wide range of resources to support the wider geographical community.
Storm Bert: A case study navigating the truth about flooding in a changing climate details the lifetime of Storm Bert, which caused significant damage back in November 2024. In particular, flood damage caused by the River Taff (in Wales) bursting its banks, really highlighted the need to continue but also improve our adaptation methods.
In the blog we also address some of the misconceptions of how our weather here in the UK and weather further afield is changing. It is crucial that we understand what trends have been identified in our climate system by climate scientists, in order to develop and establish effective adaptation methods.
Make sure you follow the link at the bottom of the page to get the FULL blog!
We also recently wrote a careers article for Geography Southwest, exploring the term ‘green careers’, ‘green skills’ and available resource for students with an interest in a career in weather and climate, particularly with a geography background.
Make sure to scroll down to the button of the page to get the full article!
COP29 will take place in Azerbaijan in November 2024.
Adapt these ideas to support your teaching in the weeks leading up to and during the conference to engage your students with the negotiations and where they are taking place.
The adaptable resource should let you pick ideas from a range which include climate zones, contour drawing, climate graphs, greenhouse gas emissions, map and graph skills in the context of Azerbaijan and climate justice.
Join over 40,000 people who have taken our free, online award winning weather and climate CPD course designed specifically for secondary geography teachers and A level students, Come Rain or Shine, which starts again on 9th October.
This is an opportunity for anyone who has previously taken the course, or who has attended one of our in person weather and climate subject knowledge days, to access the resources again without cost.
The course is now spread over 5 weeks to maximise the free access period, and features updated and additional material.
The learning objectives for the course are:
The course focuses on UK weather (depressions, air masses, anticyclones) through a mix of videos, text, practical exercises and fieldwork, and also explores the wider global picture. It takes about 2 hours per week over 5 weeks.
Due to changes in the FutureLearn platform, participants only get free access to the resources for a few weeks. We therefore suggest that you only register yourself or your students for the course on the day you want to start accessing the materials.
