Solving the carbon dioxide problem
Students find out about climate solutions for fossil fuels, food, industry, transportation and buildings, and plan how to keep global temperature rise below 1.5 °C.
© UCAR. Licensed under CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0
Preparation
Download the resources below.
What you'll need
- Devices with internet access to Project Drawdown website
- Copies of the Sector Analysis Planning Sheet
- Copies of the Planning Guide
- Copies of the graphs
Location
- Indoors
Curriculum links
- Geography
- Chemistry
- Citizenship
Step by step
Create six groups in your classroom, and assign each group to analyse a different sector from the diagram, using information from the Project Drawdown webpages linked above:
- Electricity Production
- Food, Agriculture, and Land Use
- Industry
- Transportation
- Buildings
- Sinks: Land, Coastal & Ocean, Engineered.
Tell each group that their task is to analyse their sector and come up with a way to share information about its parts, purposes, and complexities with the rest of the class. They should organise their analysis as a visual presentation (for example: a chart, diagram, or slides).
Give each group copies of the Sector Analysis Planning Sheet to use as a place to capture and organise their thinking.
Parts: Define the components of this sector. How does the sector contribute to the problem of climate change? In what different areas are solutions needed? Provide information to help us really understand this sector and how to address it. Include data where possible.
Purposes: Explain how addressing different parts of this sector will help reduce atmospheric carbon dioxide. What is their role? Provide 1-2 examples of the type of solutions that are currently being implemented in this sector, and explain how they will help.
Complexities: What are the challenges with implementing solutions to this sector? What further developments are needed to make reducing atmospheric carbon dioxide in this sector successful? What questions do you have?