Climate Change Topic: Extreme weather

More For Teachers’ CPD video series released

Post author By Eleanor Pinches
Post date 20 May 2025

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:

Adaptation and Mitigation

Post date 30 April 2025

What actions can society take against climate change and extreme weather hazards?
How can climate change be managed by mitigation and adaptation?
How effective are mitigation and adaptation at combatting the climate crisis?
What happens when mitigation and adaptation fail?

Students complete a graphic organiser using videos and information sheets. This could be done as a marketplace activity, where students rotate around stations in the room gathering information.

Resources

Adaptation and Mitigation ppt

Adaptation/ mitigation worksheet

Adaptation and Mitigation – information sheets for the activity

Adaptation in Sheffield

Post date 30 April 2025

Example of climate change adaptation and mitigation – Sheffield and flooding along the River Don

The objective of this resource is to understand how a local area within the UK can adapt to extreme weather and try to contribute to mitigating climate change.
To do so you will first play a game, then you will produce a plan to combat flooding in Sheffield in a decision-making exercise.
Finally, you will look at some of the actual strategies being used in Sheffield to try and tackle flooded linked to climate change.

Why does Sheffield Flood? What role does Extreme weather play?

What actions can society take against climate change and extreme weather?
How can climate change be managed by mitigation and adaptation?

Is Sheffield ready for the extra flooding attributed to climate change?

Resources

Adaptation Top Trumps – introduction

Adaptation Top Trumps – file for printing

External link: strategies to adapt to inland flooding in Sheffield from Earth Learning Ideas

DME – saving Sheffield from flooding

Case Study: Monsoon Flooding

Post date 30 April 2025

How can weather become extreme and hazardous?
The place-specific causes – the extreme weather conditions which led to the Monsoon event
The consequences of the Monsoon for people and places
The Responses to the Extreme Monsoon Hazard

Resources

The Pakistan floods of 2022 – causes -ppt

The physical causes of the Monsoon worksheet

Effects of Flooding Exercise

The Great Deluge video tasks

Pakistan Floods are a climate catastrophe video tasks worksheet

The Pakistan floods of 2022 – impacts – ppt

The Pakistan floods of 2022 – responses – ppt

Knowledge Organiser – Pakistan Floods

Flooding in the UK

Post date 30 April 2025

Example of climate change adaptation and mitigation – Sheffield and flooding along the River Don
Background to the Don and Rother River catchment – what are the background flood factors?
Attribution – Is Climate Change to Blame for Extreme Weather?

Resources

Flooding in Sheffield, causes and attribution to climate change

Flooding in Sheffield – worksheet

Heat Waves in the UK

Post date 30 April 2025

Cambridge temperature map with river Cam

What are heat waves (extreme heat) like?
The place-specific causes – the extreme weather conditions which led to the event
The consequences of heatwaves for people and place
The Responses to an Extreme Weather Event in the UK

Resources

Cambridge Heatwave ppt

Cambridge temperature data worksheet

2022 heatwave – consequences for people and place worksheet

Heat waves and climate change worksheet

Knowledge Organiser: 2022 Heatwave in Cambridge Case Study

Interview with Jamie Fountain

What Makes Weather Extreme?

Post date 29 April 2025

In this lesson we deal with what hazardous weather is and why our weather is becoming more hazardous.

1.How do we define ‘extreme weather’ and why can it be difficult?

2.What events qualify as “extreme weather”?

3.What has happened to the frequency of extreme weather events globally?

4.What has happened to the distribution of extreme weather events?

Weather Risk Game

Post date 1 April 2025

Weather risk game

Powerpoint: Weather Risk Game

Word Document: Money

Time: 30 minutes

You will need: money.docx printed in colour, WeatherRiskGame.pptx, 6 dice – large ones which the whole class can see work best. I got some foam ones very cheaply.

a) Before the event, mark the dice ‘p’ and 1-5. On the die marked 1, cross out or otherwise mark one side, on the die marked 2 cross out or otherwise mark two sides etc. Crossed-out sides represent good weather and sides which aren’t crossed out represent bad weather. The more sides are crossed out, the lower the chance of bad weather!

b) Use the ppt to guide the activity.
c) The students will need to get into 6 groups. Give each group one colour of money and ask them to cut it up. You should keep the ‘insured’ slips.
d) Each time you play, roll the P dice first. On the basis of which side it shows, the students should decide whether to insure their businesses or not (if a 6 is shown, then there is no chance of bad weather and presumably no-one will insure). If they choose to insure, they should pay you the appropriate sum in return for an ‘Insured’ slip. Then, roll the appropriate die (so if the P die gave a 3, next roll the die labelled 3). If a crossed-out side is rolled, then anyone who was not insured should pay you the appropriate sum.
e) Collect in all the insured slips and start again.
f) Continue until either one team, or all teams except one are out, depending on time.

Extreme Heat Fieldwork and Adaptation

Post date 5 June 2024

This resource has been developed by Rob Gamesby (Cool Geography) with the Royal Meteorological Society and the Field Studies Council for the National Festival of Fieldwork.

All schools in England have to produce a Climate Action Plan, and part of that action plan involves assessing the schools’ vulnerability to extreme weather, such as heatwaves, and taking actions to reduce the risk of extreme heat.

These fieldwork options are designed to allow secondary geography students in our schools to explore how vulnerable their school is and what can be done to adapt to that risk.

Scheme of Work – start here!

Background information for teachers

Guidance for school Sustainability Leads

Lesson 1 – Introduction, Community Reminiscences and School Questionnaires

PowerPoint

Reminiscences data collection Sheet

Questionnaire data collection sheet

Fieldwork Option – Variations in Temperature in the School Grounds

PowerPoint

Spreadsheet

Data collection sheet

Fieldwork Option – the impact of trees on temperature

PowerPoint

Spreadsheet

Data collection sheet

Fieldwork Option – Variations in Temperature between classrooms

PowerPoint

Spreadsheet

Data collection sheet

Scotland’s Curriculum – Extreme Weather

Post date 15 November 2023

Resource produced in collaboration with MEI

Brief overview of session ‘logic’

Do reports of extreme cold weather provide evidence that global warming is not happening?
Show the New York Times graphs of summer temperature distributions for the Northern Hemisphere for different periods.
Interrogate/critique these graphs
The distributions of temperatures are approximately Normal distributions and the mean and standard deviation both increase as the time period becomes more recent.
Use the dynamic bell curve to calculate probabilities of different temperatures in different time periods.
Despite the mean temperature increasing, the standard deviation also increasing means that the probability of extreme low temperatures increases.
Normal distributions and bell curves can explain a higher frequency of extreme cold weather despite global warming.

Mathematical opportunities offered

Interpretation of data, statistics, graphs, infographics in context
Critiquing graphs
Reading scales
Using standard form to write very large or very small numbers
Fitting a Normal distribution or bell curve to a graph
Exploring the effect of adjusting mean and standard deviation on a bell curve
Understanding that probabilities can be represented and calculated using areas
Analysing and comparing data in order to develop and present a conclusion.

Download the resources

Activity and Teacher’s Notes
Direct link to activity: https://teacher.desmos.com/activitybuilder/custom/6032e8d3f60b700ce9b36ebc

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Weather risk game

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