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.
In 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:
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.
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:
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:
We’ve pulled all our contour drawing resources into one place, and made a short video guide to drawing contours onto maps.
Our award winning, online weather and climate CPD course for secondary geography teachers, Come Rain or Shine, is starting its 9th run on the FutureLearn platform on the 10th of June.The course is also suitable for older students to take.
It will run for 15 weeks. During the 1st 3 weeks (until 30th June), expert mentors will be on hand to answer questions and respond to comments.
Access is free for 5 weeks from whenever you start the course.
The learning objectives for the course are:
The Society’s Climate Change Negotiations for Schools Resource – ‘Simulating a World Climate Conference’ – has been recognized and ‘Highly Commended’ at the SAGT Conference Awards 2018 hosted by Dollar Academy. Morven Neil, RMetS Scottish Education Representative was in attendance at the conference to receive the award and to run a number of seminars that gave conference attendees the opportunity to trial the resource. In these seminars, a number of Geography teachers from across Scotland worked together in designated country groups to decide their own greenhouse gas emission pledges, deliver these to the other assembled delegates and then negotiate. Despite some intense negotiation, they were not able to commit to emission reductions which would limit global temperature increases to within the recommended threshold, but will hopefully leave equipped to confidently deliver the resource in their own classrooms.
We are delighted that our Climate Negotiations Resource has been awarded a Silver award at this year’s Geographical Association conference.
The citation from the judges read: “Simulating a world climate change conference is a free, online and multimedia resource, relevant for both GCSE and A level specifications. It provides a wealth of high-quality, sophisticated and up-to-date materials, including clear instructions and background information; vital for developing a full geographical perspective on the potential positions of the different countries. Particularly useful is video input from one of the British delegates to the Paris climate talks which lends authenticity to the process that the students undertake. The judges felt that while role play is a well-established approach to learning about geographical issues such as climate change, the quality of the resource would enable teachers to confidently set up an excellent simulation for their classes.”
We are delighted to launch our new climate negotiations resource, for 14-18 year old students. The full resource can be found here.
The next run of our free, online weather and climate CPD course designed specficially for secondary geography teachers and A level students, Come Rain or Shine, starts again on 2nd October. From 2-22nd October there will be experts on hand to answer any questions or help you if you get stuck.
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 3 hours per week over 3 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.
We have made a short film introducing the Global Atmospheric Circulation. You can find it on YouTube at https://youtu.be/fDs9MiHk3G8.
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