The Letter-Writing Journal Club: Joining the Debate on Solar Geoengineering

Overview

Objectives

By participating fully in this activity, students will learn how to:

• Read a published article on solar geoengineering critically and identify the points worth responding to
• Explain what a letter to the editor is, and the conditions that make one publishable: the journal must publish comments on its own articles, and writers must follow its format
• Contribute perspectives from their own discipline, whether physical or social science, to a shared argument
• Draft, revise, and agree on a short collaborative letter, and decide fairly who qualifies as an author

Grade Level

Grades 11-12, Undergraduate, Graduate

Standards

Needs review: The draft uses a Common Core writing standard (WHST.11-12.1) alongside one NGSS standard; the lessons otherwise list NGSS standards. Confirm.

These are Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) performance expectations and Common Core State Standards for English language arts.

• CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.WHST.11-12.1 — Write arguments focused on discipline-specific content.
• HS-ETS1-3 — 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.

This lesson also supports these international frameworks:

• Global competence (Asia Society and OECD): Recognize perspectives; Communicate ideas; Take action
• UNESCO learning objectives for SDG 13 (Climate Action):
  • Socio-emotional 2: encouraging others to protect the climate
  • Socio-emotional 3: collaborating on agreed strategies to deal with climate change

United Nations Sustainable Development Goals

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

Materials Required

• A recently published article on solar geoengineering in a journal or forum that publishes letters in response, such as SRM360
• A shared document for drafting, such as an online word processor
• Timothy Daly’s article describing the journal club, and an example of a published letter (see Resources)

Learning Sequence

Lesson Plan Introduction

Letters to the editor let readers respond publicly to published research, and they are one of the few ways students and junior researchers can take part in the peer-reviewed debate. Daly’s journal club was held in three phases: preparation and reading, a structured discussion, and collaborative drafting and revision of the letter. The club he describes produced a letter published in Environmental Science and Policy.

Activity Details

1. Choose and Read an Article

• Choose a recent article on solar geoengineering in a journal or forum that publishes letters commenting on its own articles, and check its rules for letters (length, deadline, format).
• Give students the article well in advance; Daly’s club gave participants more than three weeks to read it.
• Discussion question: What makes an article worth responding to, and what is the difference between a letter and a new research paper?

2. Structured Journal Club Discussion

• Two facilitators summarize the article, then lead a structured discussion of about 90 minutes.
• Adapt the three questions Daly’s club used: Which aspects of the article are most relevant to your own work or interests? How could your discipline’s expertise help solve the problems the article raises? What skills matter most for your growth in this field?
• Record the group’s answers; they become the raw material for the letter.

3. Draft the Letter Together

• The facilitators turn the group’s answers into a first draft in a shared document and invite every participant as a co-author.
• The group revises the draft over several rounds, for example across one week, keeping it short and focused on one or two points.
• Agree on authorship. Daly suggests that in future clubs, students take the lead as presenters or drafters so they qualify for first authorship.

4. Submit and Follow the Conversation

• Check the letter against the journal’s requirements and submit it, or submit to an open forum such as SRM360’s letters to the editor.
• Compare with a published example: the club’s letter “Rethinking expertise on climate cooling technologies” (Carabajal et al., 2026) and the original authors’ reply published alongside it.
• Discussion question: What did writing for publication require that a class essay would not?

Conclusion

Close with a reflective question: How did responding to published research change the way you read it, and whose voices are still missing from the debate on solar geoengineering?

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

Choose an article that matters where students live, or one by authors from their own country, so the letter connects the global debate to local concerns.

Bring in other perspectives

The original club brought together junior researchers from many countries. Encourage students to ask whose voices the article leaves out, and to seek co-authors from another discipline or country.

Share beyond the classroom

The letter itself reaches a real audience: submit it to the journal or forum, and share the outcome with the class.

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

• The letter-writing journal club as an interdisciplinary pedagogical practice in geosciences and geoethics

  Timothy Daly (2026), Journal of Geoethics and Social Geosciences, open access: the journal club this lesson is based on.

  • Open Link: The letter-writing journal club as an interdisciplinary pedagogical practice in geosciences and geoethics

• Rethinking expertise on climate cooling technologies

  Carabajal et al. (2026), Environmental Science and Policy: the letter the journal club wrote and published.

  • Open Link: Rethinking expertise on climate cooling technologies

• Letters provide a forum for public engagement with geoengineering

  Daly, Teixeira da Silva, and Nazarovets (2026), Reviews on Environmental Health: a review of published letters on geoengineering.

  • Open Link: Letters provide a forum for public engagement with geoengineering

• Letters to the Editor – August 2026

  SRM360’s letters forum, an accessible place to submit a letter.

  • Open Link: Letters to the Editor – August 2026

Related lessons

• Research or Not? Classifying Solar Radiation Modification Experiments: students classify real SRM experiments and debate a non-use agreement; a good lesson to teach before this one

Credit and contact