6.2 Climate Change Impacts on Societies
In this activity, we will explore the impacts of climate change on human societies. We will make a card game that can be used to educate other students and then use a connection circle to explore the connections between the impacts, the leverage points, and how these connections impact the resilience of a society.
I will record the success of this activity and add details and hints here.
Climate change is impacting human societies at a variety of scales and socio-economic conditions. This impacts the resilience of societies. We need to understand how climate change is leading to health challenges, water supply disruption, agriculture and infrastructure challenges.
In this activity, you will create cards that can be used to play a game that can educate your fellow students about climate change.
We will also, then use these cards in a connection circle to understand the system connections between different impacts of climate change, look for leverage points in the system, and how these different impacts affect the resilience of the whole system.
Here is a template to use.
Step 1: Read the SL and HL: Climate Change and Human Societies section in the Ebook 6.2 Climate Change - Causes and Impacts.
Step 2: Create three cards for each of the following categories:
Changes to health
Water supply
Agriculture
Infrastructure
Card Design
Explanation of Card Factors
CHANGE: this is an anticipated physical change that will occur
IMPACT: this is an impact on a society that will occur due to that change
LOCATION: the region of the world, identified in the AR6 report that is associated with this card
RISK: the student estimated risk of this impact to society on a scale of 1-10
QUESTION: someone playing the card can choose to answer a question rather than use their risk factor (like top trumps - highest score wins). The answer should be short.
AI HINT: Check your question is easily answerable using an AI Large Language Model such as ChatGPT with a prompt like:
According to the IPCC AR6 report, which region of Europe's agriculture is expected to be most impacted by flooding?
You can also check your risk level with the prompt: On a scale of 1-10, how big a risk is:
e.g. On a scale of 1-10, how big a risk is extreme weather events leading to flooding causing the impact of harvest failure in Europe. I am making a card game.
The AI model will give you a justification for the level of risk.
Step 3: Once the cards are ready, play the game.
Take your cards and arrange them in a circle on a writable surface.
Take turns to draw a line between two cards and write an explanation for the connection. Place an arrow on the line to show the cause and effect. Make sure you say the explanation aloud.
Continue until everyone has drawn at least two connections. The more connections, the better.
Now step back and look at all the connections.
Are there some cards that have more connections? Discuss whether these cards are potential leverage points in this system.
Discuss which societal impacts of climate change might affect the resilience of a society the most. Justify your answers using the connections that have been made.