Teachers TryScience

1. Tell students that although the impacts of climate change can seem overwhelming, towns and cities have already begun the process of adapting to life in a different climate. For example, in areas susceptible to flooding and sea level rise, new wastewater treatment infrastructure is required to be built further from the shore, and areas that are experiencing drought more frequently are funding research into new irrigation practices. These innovations are not only preparing citizens for climate change, but in some cases they are improving the environment and quality of life for humans. For example, one way costal cities are dealing with more extreme weather is to restore costal vegetation. The roots of these plants help hold soil and sand in place and prevent erosion. This restoration of natural vegetation helps provide important wildlife habitat, improves air quality, and provides humans with more natural spaces to enjoy. Since climate change is a complex issue, climate change adaptation will require innovative thinking and the first step in increasing resilience is to identify the vulnerabilities within a system. Ask students what vulnerability and resilience mean in this context.
2. A well thought out vulnerability assessment tool is essential in prioritizing where to take action since targeting every potential problem is not feasible given the resources a city has as its disposal. Provide students with one or two examples of actual vulnerability assessment models and tools. You can research to see if these exist for your area, or review parts of the documents below to illustrate how cities and regions have already approached identifying vulnerabilities.

Federal Highway Management Assessment Model

City of Keene, New Hampshire

Mayor of London Climate Change Adaptation Strategy

California Climate Change Vulnerability Assessment Resources

3. Tell students that they will be creating a vulnerability assessment tool for their school. Rather than including all potential climate change impacts, they will use what they learned in lessons 1 and 2 of this unit to focus on the effects that extremes in precipitation might have on the school and surrounding areas.
4. Have students select one or two videos from the Believing section of the THINK app and as a class, view the short videos. Ask students what change the speaker in the video(s) was trying to make. What individual or group did they need on board before they could make the change? What type of data did the speaker(s) use to present their ideas? Tell students that in order to make change, you need to consider who you are asking to take action and what type of information they need to understand and buy into your idea.
5. Ask students who they think the audience for the tool should be. The principal? City officials? Teachers and students? As a class, discuss what types of information the tool should include that would help the target audience understand what actions the school could take to adapt to climate change. In general, these types of tools include information about vulnerabilities, as well as information about what action could be taken to adapt.
6. Now that students have thought about their audience and the type of information they’d like to collect, it is time to create a template for the vulnerability assessment tool. This can get very complex very quickly. You can provide students with the Sample Vulnerability Assessment Tool as a template or as a starting point to create their own. The Sample Tool includes initial entries to help prompt students.
7. Once the template is complete, students can work in groups of 3-4 to begin filling in the list of vulnerabilities. You can have students actually walk around the interior and exterior of the school, or have students work in the classroom to think about all of the different ways their school could be impacted. As an alternative, you could have each group examine a different part of the school (i.e. one group would think about windows and roofing, another would think of transportation issues, etc.). You could also provide students time to research recent trends in flooding, drought, etc. so they get a more detailed sense of what impacts are most likely

8. After students have a list of vulnerabilities, they can return to the classroom to think about how to prioritize the vulnerabilities. As a class, you can discuss which vulnerabilities should be highest priority, or you can ask groups of students to indicate what criteria they used for ranking.
9. Similarly, students should then begin to fill in adaptation ideas, as well as how feasible these actions might be. Prompt students to think about trade-offs. Is it better to make several feasible changes that have a low impact, or push for one very impactful, time-consuming, expensive change?
10. Finally, students should use their vulnerability and feasibility rankings to make overall recommendations for increasing the school’s resilience. Remind students that this is just a starting point, so they should work with the information available to them.
11. Once the document is completely filled out, ask each group to share a few of their ideas about what the school’s priorities should be in adapting to climate change.
12. Wrap-up by reminding students that climate change and systems within a school are complex. Remind students about the thermometer comparison they made in Confronting Climate Change, Lesson 1. Like the thermometer, students may need help seeing just how valuable their assessment tool is. Be sure that students understand that tools such as the one they have created are just as essential as the actual adaptation activities. Be sure to inform students about who you will present their vulnerability assessment tools to, and how they might be used. It is also important to mention to students that the adoption of a new idea may take quite a long time, but a new idea can spark other ideas or shift attention to a previously unidentified issue. In this way, an idea can be important even if it is not implemented.