Editorial: Climate change on the agenda

The 15th annual international conference on climate change with representatives from every UN member country will take place in Copenhagen from December 7th to 18th. The topic of climate change is on everybody's lips at the moment and if you go to www.onestopclil.com and search with the phrase 'climate change', what do you get?

There is so much that it's hard to know where to start. I suppose if onestopclil can help in the climate change debate, then it will be by developing student content knowledge and language skills in this topic. Let's organize it in terms of what knowledge and skills you can practice with onestopclil materials:

Research using the web

You get a 15 page Climate Change and Alternative Energy Webquest which accesses the Science Museum's website in search of information on the causes and effects of global warming.

Listening practice

There is a Biology listening file focusing on the theme of climate change - How worried should we be? Another listening activity on the topic of water scarcity means there is plenty of listening practice to be had in the topic of climate change.

Project work

Geography and the environment contains a whole section with materials dedicated to climate change and the environment. This section contains integrated skills lessons which cover issues such as recycling in the UK, saving water in the garden and pollution and get students carrying out a collaborative project on pollution.

Watching and giving presentations

There are PowerPoints with embedded flash animation for presenting and discussing global warming and climate change. The PowerPoint What is the Greenhouse Effect? offers students speaking prompts to support their own talk on this issue.

Biomass Power presents a simple explanation of how power is captured from Biomass crops.

Warm up and brainstorming

Activities like Hotter and hotter get students to brainstorm what they already know on the topic of global warming and then discuss with their classmates.

Vocabulary

There is an editable wordlist with 12 pages of key vocabulary to do with climate change.

Real life activities

There is a lesson from the Lesson Share section onestopenglish which gets students involved in Earth Hour 2010 and has them investigate how much electrical appliances at home they have left on, and then turn them off when not in use.

Further resources and reviews

Food chains, Biomes, Habitats and Environments are all sections related to climate change and offer a rich resource for teachers working on this theme. There are also links to and reviews of other educational websites which focus on the climate change topic.

What else is new this month?

While we're on the topic of extra resources, what else do you get on onestopclil.com this month?

Keeping with the theme of climate change you'll find reading and writing practice in Energy Pairs, a worksheet dedicated to the topic of energy based on a task from the Science Museum UK. You'll also find a wordlist on the topic of Weather and Climate  and there is a spot the difference speaking activity where students describe how environmentally friendly two different towns are.

On top of all these climate materials, there is a lot more new stuff. Kay Bentley expands our CLIL vocabulary with an explanation of 'code switching'. There is a Middle Ages question loop, so more fun speaking practice in History this time and we have a new lesson share winner with a lesson on Sine and Cosine. Apart from resources, you'll find reports too. Alexandra Zaparucha has sent us in a lively report on the recent CLIL Conference in Tuurku, Finland, photos and all.

If you get your students involved in the Climate Change debate this month, let us know. Send us your lessons, debate the issues for climate education through the discussion forum and write to us with reports on your activities so we can share them with our growing CLIL community. If your climate change education is good enough to share, we'll be glad to help you spread the word.

Best wishes,

Keith