Culminating Event

Overview

Objectives

By participating fully in this activity, students will:

• Practice their skills of presenting and communicating to the public and professionals about their project.
• Practice their skills of giving and receiving feedback from the audience.

Grade Level

Grades 6-12, Undergraduate

Standards

These are Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) performance expectations.

MS-ETS1-1 Engineering Design. Define the criteria and constraints of a design problem with sufficient precision to ensure a successful solution, taking into account relevant scientific principles and potential impacts on people and the natural environment that may limit possible solutions.

MS-ESS3-4 Earth and Human Activity. Construct an argument supported by evidence for how increases in human population and per-capita consumption of natural resources impact Earth's systems.

MS-ETS1-2 Engineering Design. Evaluate competing design solutions using a systematic process to determine how well they meet the criteria and constraints of the problem.

HS-ETS1-3 Engineering Design. Evaluate a solution to a complex real-world problem based on prioritized criteria and trade-offs that account for a range of constraints, including cost, safety, reliability, and aesthetics as well as possible social, cultural, and environmental impacts.

HS-ESS3-2 Earth and Human Activity. Evaluate competing design solutions for developing, managing, and utilizing energy and mineral resources based on cost-benefit ratios.

This lesson also supports these international frameworks:

• Global competence (Asia Society and OECD): Communicate ideas; Take action
• UNESCO learning objectives for SDG 13 (Climate Action):
  • Socio-emotional 2: encouraging others to protect the climate
  • Behavioural 4: promoting climate-protecting public policies

Materials Required

• Climate Engineering Blueprints
• Worksheets of previous lessons
• Computer access to create presentation
• ALTERNATIVE – Computer access for poster creation

United Nations Sustainable Development Goals

• SD Goal 4: Quality Education: Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all
• SD Goal 13: Climate Action: Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts

Learning Sequence

Lesson Plan Introduction

In this lesson students will prepare a presentation that highlights their climate engineering designs as well as the risks and limitations of deploying their technology in the real world. Students will give their presentation in class and/or present in a poster session. If you have the resources to contact an audience consisting of engineers, scientists or policymakers that would be ideal.

Activity Details

Event set-up

• Each student/group should prepare a 5 to 10 minutes presentation of their climate engineering design AND/OR a poster (see resources for templates).
• If it is a group presentation each member could be tasked with presenting different parts of the design
• Their presentation should highlight how the technology works as well as its limitation and risks
• The worksheets from Lesson 3 and Lesson 4 should be used to help create a thorough presentation

Presentation

• Each group/student will present their work to the class
• It is valuable for students to present to professionals outside of the school (e.g., local naturalists, extension scientists, city park officials, librarians, city council members, industry leaders)
• Encourage other members of the class/professionals to provide students feedback on their design

Extension

• One way to extend this activity is to have students write a letter and/or social media post to a local/state/national politician. This could be done prior to presentations as an invitation to attend or afterward as a call to action. A template is included in the resources.

Conclusion

You can conclude the lesson by asking students to write a reflection of the feedback they receive and changes they would make to their design and presentation as a result of feedback.

Global Connections

Needs review: Claude drafted the Global Connections section, and the global competence and UNESCO SDG 13 entries under Standards, from the lesson materials. Review and edit them.

Start where you teach

The letter assignment asks students to write to Indiana's governor. Students elsewhere can write to a decision maker in their own community or country, such as a mayor, a member of their national legislature, or an environment minister.

Bring in other perspectives

Ask each group to include in their presentation how their design would affect people in at least one other part of the world, drawing on the nations from the Model U.N. lesson.

Share beyond the classroom

Besides local scientists and policymakers, students can present by video to a class in another country and ask for its feedback.

Lesson materials

Download the files below to teach this lesson. PDFs are accessible versions; PowerPoint and Excel files can be edited for your class.

Teacher resources

• Full lesson plan

  • Download PDF: Full lesson plan

• Lesson slides

  • Download PowerPoint: Lesson slides
  • Download PDF: Lesson slides
  • Watch Slide video (no audio): Lesson slides

• Letter to a politician assignment

  • Download PDF: Letter to a politician assignment

Student resources

• Student presentation template

  • Download PowerPoint: Student presentation template

• Student poster template

  Needs review: The poster template's one image has no alt text, and its slide has no title. Add both before publishing the file.

  • Download PowerPoint: Student poster template

Credit and contact