The Climate in Our Hands - Climate Models
The Office for Climate Education (OCE) has published "The Climate in Our Hands – Climate Models", a comprehensive guidebook tailored for high school teachers. This manual provides educators with the tools and resources needed to effectively teach climate models and their significance in understanding climate change. The guide integrates a wide range of engaging activities, including role-playing games, experiments, modeling exercises, multimedia animation-based activity, documentary analysis, and observational tasks. Each activity is accompanied by both a scientific and pedagogical background, ensuring that teachers are equipped with the necessary skills to guide their students through complex climate concepts.
A central goal of the handbook is to tackle a key educational challenge: fostering systemic thinking in students. It encourages them to understand the interconnectedness of different Earth systems, such as the ocean, biosphere and atmosphere. They consider time, space and context in order to understand how elements interact within and between those systems. Students deepen their middle school knowledge of climate and work on many key skills through active pedagogies and inquiry-based learning. Moreover, it emphasizes the development of critical thinking skills, essential for analyzing and addressing the complex challenges posed by climate change. The handbook also addresses the emotional impact of climate change by including foresight activities, allowing students to imagine and create future scenarios. Moreover, it emphasizes the development of critical thinking skills, essential for analyzing and addressing the complex challenges posed by climate change.
Understanding Climate Models
Climate models are indispensable tools in climate science, used to simulate and analyze interactions between various components of the Earth’s systems, such as the atmosphere, oceans, and ice sheets, over time. These models are crucial in predicting future climate projections by examining variables like greenhouse gas concentrations, temperature fluctuations, and precipitation trends.
The handbook provides accessible explanations of the different types of models, such as digital or analog, and their usefulness in obtaining climate projections. The multimedia animation on the effect of urban heat islands is based on real scientific data and IPCC scenarios. The various temperature projections obtained are provided by climatologists using real climate models! However, the use of the models is progressive and adapted to high school students. It also clarifies the distinction between a model and a projection—an often confusing topic for students. With a solution-oriented approach, the manual demonstrates how climate models can be leveraged to devise effective adaptation strategies for future climate challenges.
Key Learning Outcomes
By engaging with the "Climate Models" handbook, students will gain several crucial learning outcomes, including:
- Comprehension of Climate Models: Gain insight into what climate models are and their role in predicting phenomena such as climate change and extreme weather events.
- Scenario Development: Develop and analyze future projections based on greenhouse gas emission scenarios, gaining insights into how various pathways could shape our climate future.
- Understand the difference between a scenario and a projection, a fundamental distinction.
- Case Studies: Explore the impact of climate change on cities through a multimedia animation that highlights the phenomenon of urban heat islands effect.
- Mitigation vs. Adaptation: Learn to differentiate between climate change mitigation strategies and adaptation strategies, at different levels.
- Concrete, local action: Understand that everyone can act and have an impact, even as a student.
- Real-World Data Analysis: Interpret real-world data and projections from authoritative sources like the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) and the ESM2025 research to better understand the future challenges posed by climate change.
- Project oneself positively in a changing world, by elaborating future narratives.
Developed Within the ESM2025 Project
The "Climate Models" handbook is part of the ESM2025 project, a European initiative aimed at advancing the next generation of Earth System Models (ESMs). Coordinated by Météo-France's Centre National de Recherches Météorologiques (CNRM), ESM2025 brings together some of Europe's leading research institutes to refine climate projections and support the development of robust climate adaptation and mitigation strategies across Europe.
The Office for Climate Education is responsible for the outreach component of the ESM2025 project, ensuring that cutting-edge scientific knowledge, particularly regarding modelization, is translated into classroom-ready materials for teachers.
Translations will soon be available in French and Spanish.
