Adaptation and Climate Change Costs
Lesson Plans
Grades11, 12, APEconomics, Engineering
This resource has been reviewed by SubjectToClimate's climate scientists and verified for scientific accuracy and up-to-date information. Learn about our review process →
Provided by MIT Environmental Solutions Initiative
What it is
- This lesson introduces students to the financial costs already experienced because of climate change and highlights some ingenious solutions to help reduce the costs of investing in climate solutions.
- The lesson includes a teacher's guide, a podcast, three activities, data on the costs of extreme weather events, and case studies of adaptation projects.
Teaching tips
Positives
- This lesson is a great way to integrate solutions thinking and introduce students to multisolving.
- The teacher's guide includes discussion questions, an answer key, and background information.
Additional Prerequisites
- Each activity can be used as a standalone, in sequence, or integrated with other curriculum needs.
- Although the information in the lesson is relevant everywhere, the data presented in the second activity focuses on the United States.
- Students should be comfortable reading graphs and charts and should know that climate change can increase the severity or frequency of extreme weather events before starting the lesson.
Differentiation
- Extra care should be given to students whose families have been affected by storms, floods, fires, or other extreme weather events.
- To make the final activity more relevant to students outside of the United States, students can be tasked with researching a case study in their country or region and answering the questions accordingly.
- This resource can also be used in math or statistics classes during lessons about analyzing and interpreting data and in English classes during lessons about communicating complex information.
- Use this online course as an extension to learn more about climate adaptation.
From the scientist review
This resource is a guide for teachers that includes skills learned, standards, core ideas, a teacher guide, student handouts, and a ~14 minute podcast, all of which discuss the need for financial investments to slow down climate change and prepare for the impacts of climate change. The information is well-sourced and researched and would be a great addition to a class discussing different needs to address climate change. This resource is recommended for teaching.
How we review resourcesReady to use it?
Hosted on climate.mit.edu
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