Climate Change Glossary and Resources

Select a letter to see a definition of the terms in the climate change association tool. Alternatively, to find a teaching resource associated with any of the terms, use the ‘all climate change’ drop-down menu on the right. Not all the terms have associated resources yet, but we are adding new ones all the time.

Scotland’s Curriculum – Trees for Net Zero

Resource produced in collaboration with MEI

This resource comprises several stand-alone activities which may be used separately.

Brief overview of session ‘logic’

  • Why trees are good
  • People are planting trees – estimates around what the numbers look like in terms of land use
  • Some companies encourage you to offset flights by planting trees – how many trees for one flight?
  • How much carbon do trees capture and store?
  • How does the amount of carbon captured and stored by a tree change during its lifecycle?
  • What happens to that carbon when a tree dies?
  • Can you plant a tree to offset a flight?
  • What is Net Zero?

Mathematical opportunities offered

  • Estimation and proportional reasoning
  • Developing a sense of scale of large numbers
  • Interpretation of data, statistics, graphs, infographics in context
  • Critiquing graphs
  • Analysing and comparing data in order to develop and present a conclusion
  • Making assumptions
  • Making predictions
  • Reading scales
Climate Change Quality Mark Content

Scotland’s Curriculum Trees for Net Zero

Resource produced in collaboration with MEI

Note that this session is made up of separate activities which may be used independently.

Brief overview of session ‘logic’

  • Why trees are good
  • People are planting trees – estimates around what the numbers look like in terms of land use
  • Some companies encourage you to offset flights by planting trees – how many trees for one flight?
  • How much carbon do trees sequester?
  • How does the amount of carbon sequestered by a tree change during its lifecycle?
  • What happens to that carbon when a tree dies?
  • Can you plant a tree to offset a flight?
  • What is Net Zero?
  • Can trees be used to achieve Net Zero?

Mathematical opportunities offered

  • Estimation and proportional reasoning
  • Developing a sense of scale of large numbers
  • Converting between m2 and km2
  • Interpretation of data, statistics, graphs, infographics in context
  • Critiquing graphs
  • Analysing and comparing data in order to develop and present a conclusion
  • Making assumptions
  • Making predictions
  • Reading scales
Climate Change Quality Mark Content

Maths for Planet Earth

Climate-based questions for students and teachers. A team of students and academics at the University of Oxford developed these Maths for Planet Earth questions.

Weather and Climate worksheet

Background Information:

Climate is the average weather over a long time period (30 years) for a particular region or place. The climate affects a number of environmental factors within the region including the type and growth of vegetation and wildlife. The climate is determined by large scale factors such as the Earth’s orbit around the Sun, the position of the continents and the composition of the atmosphere. Weather describes the short-term state of our atmosphere. This may include information about the air temperature, precipitation, air pressure and cloud cover. Our local weather changes daily due to the movement of air in our atmosphere.

Experiences and Outcomes:

I can investigate the relationship between climate and weather.

two dice tally

Difference between weather and climate

You will need:

2 dice

Tally chart for numbers 2-12 Graph paper

Method:

In pairs, throw the two dice about 100 times and record the combined score shown each time. 

Draw a bar graph of the results.

Results:

The results should show a smoothish distribution, with a score of 7 being most frequent. Ask each group to predict what their score will be if they throw the dice one more time – they can’t. However, with one more throw, the mean of all the scores will stay about the same (about 7). In the same way, the weather may be very different from day to day but the climate, the weather we ‘expect’, stays about the same.

If you don’t have access to dice, you can do this activity online at https://www.metlink.org/blog/weather-climate-extreme-weather-and-chaos-theory/ 

Extension:

Can the students design a concept cartoon to illustrate the difference between weather and climate? See https://www.stem.org.uk/system/files/elibrary-resources/legacy_files_migrated/1292WEATHER.PDF and http://www.millgatehouse.co.uk/concept-cartoons-research/ 

References/Resources: 

A YouTube video showing an owner and his dog, as an analogy for weather and climate

Key Stage 3 – Trees and Carbon Capture

Resource produced in collaboration with MEI

Brief overview of session ‘logic’

  • Why trees are good
  • How much carbon do trees capture and store?
  • How does the amount of carbon captured and stored by a tree change during its lifecycle?

Mathematical opportunities offered

  • Interpretation of data, statistics, graphs, infographics in context
  • Critiquing graphs
  • Analysing and comparing data in order to develop and present a conclusion
  • Making assumptions
  • Making predictions
  • Reading scale
Climate Change Quality Mark Content

Key Stage 3 – Trees for Net Zero (Extended Resource)

Resource produced in collaboration with MEI

Brief overview of session ‘logic’

  • Why trees are good
  • People are planting trees – estimates around what the numbers look like in terms of land use
  • Some companies encourage you to offset flights by planting trees – how many trees for one flight?
  • How much carbon do trees capture and store?
  • How does the amount of carbon captured and stored by a tree change during its lifecycle?
  • What happens to that carbon when a tree dies?
  • Can you plant a tree to offset a flight?
  • What is Net Zero?

Mathematical opportunities offered

  • Estimation and proportional reasoning
  • Developing a sense of scale of large numbers
  • Interpretation of data, statistics, graphs, infographics in context
  • Critiquing graphs
  • Analysing and comparing data in order to develop and present a conclusion
  • Making assumptions
  • Making predictions
  • Reading scales
Climate Change Quality Mark Content

Core Maths – Trees and Carbon Capture

Resource produced in collaboration with MEI

Brief overview of session ‘logic’

  • Why trees are good
  • How much carbon do trees sequester?
  • How does the amount of carbon sequestered by a tree change during its lifecycle?

Mathematical opportunities offered

  • Interpretation of data, statistics, graphs, infographics in context
  • Critiquing graphs
  • Analysing and comparing data in order to develop and present a conclusion
  • Making assumptions
  • Making predictions
  • Reading scales
Climate Change Quality Mark Content

Trees for Net Zero (Extended Resource)

Resource produced in collaboration with MEI

Brief overview of session ‘logic’

  • Why trees are good
  • People are planting trees – estimates around what the numbers look like in terms of land use
  • Some companies encourage you to offset flights by planting trees – how many trees for one flight?
  • How much carbon do trees sequester?
  • How does the amount of carbon sequestered by a tree change during its lifecycle?
  • What happens to that carbon when a tree dies?
  • Can you plant a tree to offset a flight?
  • What is Net Zero?
  • Can trees be used to achieve Net Zero?

Mathematical opportunities offered

  • Estimation and proportional reasoning
  • Developing a sense of scale of large numbers
  • Converting between m2 and km2
  • Interpretation of data, statistics, graphs, infographics in context
  • Critiquing graphs
  • Analysing and comparing data in order to develop and present a conclusion
  • Making assumptions
  • Making predictions
  • Reading scales
Climate Change Quality Mark Content

Sankey Diagrams for Physics

Energy and Climate Change

Energy is needed in the form of electricity to power our lives, and to fuel our travel and industry. Since 1990, total world energy consumption has increased by over 55% and is projected to increase by another third by 2040.

Globally, oil accounts for over 30% of total energy use, followed by coal, gas and nuclear at 4%. This mix is different when you look only at electricity production, and different again on a country by country level.

A sustainable energy transition is a shift from an energy intensive society based on fossil fuels to energy efficiency with low carbon and renewable energy sources.

The Paris Agreement is a legally binding global climate change agreement, adopted by 189 nations at the Paris climate conference (COP21) in December 2015. It sets out a global framework to avoid dangerous climate change by limiting global warming to well below 2°C and pursuing efforts to limit it to 1.5°C.

Significant changes in energy production, transmission and use are necessary to achieve these commitments.

This should lead to co-benefits including improved air quality and reductions in energy poverty.

Since 2019, the costs of developing new power plants based on hydroelectric power, onshore wind, solar photovoltaic (PV), biomass and geothermal energy have become comparable to the costs of new oil and gas fuel plants.   

Physicists play an essential role in all aspects of climate change research and policy decisions as well as in development of technologies and new ideas for preventing and mitigating the effects of future, damaging climate change.

Energy and Core Physics

 

Energy is a fundamental concept in physics and a key topic in any physics curriculum. The Earth’s climate system is driven by energy stores and transfers. Development of clean, sustainable energy generation and distribution methods relies on understanding the core physics involved. The climate system and sustainable energy production therefore provide engaging and relevant sources of examples for enhancing the teaching and learning of energy as a topic in Physics. They give teachers an obvious opportunity to engage their students in an appreciation of the importance of the physics already in the school curriculum in solving many of the problems surrounding accelerated climate change, as illustrated in the following, brief summary of potential links.

Energy is transferred by radiation from the Sun, increasing the thermal store in the Earth’s atmosphere and ocean systems. Energy transfers within these systems take place through the physical processes of conduction, convection, radiation and changes of state. Seasonal and longer term, natural variations in heating and cooling of the Earth are a result of the alignment of the Earth in space and its orbital motion around the Sun. Land and ice surfaces are heated differentially according to the absorptive or reflective nature of the surface type and rocks are heated internally due to energy released during radioactive decay and large scale, convective motion of the Earth’s interior.

Successful and sustainable, low carbon generation of electricity to meet current and future demands relies on understanding and exploiting many of these natural, physical processes. Atmospheric convection causes winds to drive wind turbines and also generates the ocean waves exploited in wave power devices. The relative motion of the Earth, Moon and Sun causes the ocean tides exploited in tidal barrages and undersea-current driven turbines. Seasonal changes, weather patterns and latitude can all affect the output of solar energy devices as can reflection and absorption of radiation by the materials they are made from. Geothermal energy relies on energy transfers due to radioactive heating of rocks, local volcanism or simply the heat capacity of the soil acting as a thermal store of energy.

Many large-scale electricity generation methods depend on the basic principle of a turbine turning a generator which relies on understanding the principles of electromagnetic induction and factors affecting potential power output and efficiency. Electricity distribution on a large scale, via the National Grid, involves minimising energy dissipation into the surroundings by transmitting electricity at very high potential difference and low current thus reducing thermal transfers of energy within the cables. Domestic uses of electricity involve devices with varying levels of energy efficiency and informed choice of the most efficient appliances and how long they are used for can lead to reductions in an individual’s energy demands, carbon footprint and household bills.

Energy Efficiency

Improving energy efficiency saves individuals money, reduces waste, conserves resources and cuts emissions of greenhouse gases and other pollutants. Discussing personal, financial savings and more immediately obvious environmental impacts can lead to engagement with climate change by an indirect route with valid applications in the physics curriculum. This is also a good opportunity to reinforce accurate vocabulary using the terms energy stores, transfers and pathways as well as the concept of energy dissipation and avoiding terms such as energy saving (https://spark.iop.org/collections/energy-new-curriculum). Examples can be given of more relevant applications of the Sankey Diagram as a tool for accounting for energy transfers in the atmosphere:

(see also http://www.sankey-diagrams.com/greenhouse-effect-explanation-with-sankey-diagram/ and https://www.metlink.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/PhysRev-25_energybudgets.pdf)

Sankey energy diagram

By Cmglee – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0

This could be used to illustrate a more complex example of a Sankey diagram and lead to a discussion of the possible effects of changes to some of the pathways, reinforcing the concept of energy conservation as both sides must remain balanced.

Wind Turbine Example 

In a wind turbine, 20% of the energy from the wind is converted to electricity. Lost wind leads to a loss of 30 % of the energy, friction between the wind and the blades of the turbine and the wind leads to a loss of 25% of the energy, and the rest of the energy is lost due to friction in the electric generator.

  1. How much energy is lost due to friction in the generator?

2.   Draw a Sankey diagram for the wind turbine, considering that the output in electrical energy is 20 kJ.