Subject taught
- Biology
- Chemistry

Link
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/global-warming/global-warming-overview/

Type of Product
- Articles
- Videos

Language Skills Developed
- Listening
- Reading

Transferable/Scientific Skills Developed
To observe, analyse and describe phenomena belonging to natural reality and to the aspects of daily life To formulate hypothesis and verify them To use simple schematizations and modelling To acquire and understand information and know how toconnect it To face problematic situations.

Description
General aims

This teaching resource represents a starting point, a useful introduction to deal with the topic of the whole learning unit. It aims to raise students' awareness about environmental issues, to solicit questions, curiosities, reflections, to formulate hypotheses and verify them, using simple schemes and models. It also aims to recognize the main interactions between the natural world and the human community, identifying the problems of human intervention in different ecosystems. The resource in question (National Geographic 22/01/19) begins with a video that clearly and effectively presents the problem. Greenhouse gases are the principal factors responsible for climate change. Their increase in the atmosphere has very serious consequences, not only for the environment but also for human health. The article highlights the effects produced by the rise of temperatures and how this is also responsible for extreme weather events, the changes in populations and wildlife, the rising of the sea level and a number of other impacts.

Linguistic aims

• To improve language skills in L2
• To enrich scientific vocabulary
• To know how to move from one linguistic register to another
• To produce clear and coherent texts in L2 (104)
• To summarize written texts


Subject specific aims

• To understand the meaning of global warming
• To understand the issues related to it
• To know how to identify the causes that determine it

Target group age
14-15 years old

Level of competence in English (CEFR) B1

Time required to use the resource with the students 2 h : 1h presentation and analysis of the resource and 1h comparison and discussion
The teacher introduces and analyzes the topic and divides the class into small groups that have to study the resource at home and integrate it with personal research. The teacher can also provide a series of extra images to encourage next brainstorming.
Students confront each other in small groups and together they must formulate a questionnaire that will be proposed to the other groups during the next meeting. For the presentation of the questionnaires they will use Kahoot (game-based learning platform, very effective and fun to propose quizzes). At the end, each group must build its own work on what has been studied and learned in relation to this resource. This work will be included in the final one which will cover the entire learning unit. The work can be produced in Power Points, through videos, audio interviews, animations ..., in this way digital skills are further developed

Possible difficulties for the students
The resource does not present any particular issues for the students

Comments
Strength/Weakness The resource, in general, presents the topic in a clear and simple way, easily accessible to the students and does not require any particular basic knowledge. Scientific reliability The source is National Geographic, the article was published on 1/22/19. The author is the writer Christina Nunez who spent five years at National Geographic. So the article is quite reliable Pedagogical value The methodologies used for this resource are: Cooperative Learning and Flipped classroom and brainstorming. Learning by Cooperative Learning takes place working together, through mutual help which also promotes socialization. The linguistic competence of everyone is a valid mutual support for all students. Researches show this methodology is very effective, allowing students to achieve prefixed goals, stimulating their potentialities and critical capacities, leading them to better self-confidence and helping them to overcome stress and anxiety. The Flipped classroom has the advantage of saving a lot of time in the classroom because the students can study at home before taking lessons. The teacher must "guide", encourage, support the students in personal research, collaboration, sharing and comparison of knowledge, but he must pay the highest attention to the personal resources selected by the students. Therefore, different videos and e-learning resources are widely used at home, while in the classroom students experiment, collaborate, carry out laboratory activities and start discussing with each other to clarify and discuss the concepts learned independently. In this way, the student "learns to learn" and becomes an "active" person in his learning process. Finally, brainstorming is essential for this type of activity because by comparison of different ideas, it stimulates and encourages student's creativity. Furthermore, through this methodology, the students can express themselves without any conditioning, learning to overcome anxiety and fear and acquiring greater self-confidence.

Related Video Lessons

The Greenhouse Effect

The Biogeochemical Cycle of Carbon