Could we use geoengineering to cool Earth’s climate?

Suitable for secondary, high school and college students, this article and accompanying activity sheet can be used in the classroom, school clubs and at home.

This resource links to KS4 and KS5 geography, Earth science and chemistry.

It can also be used as a careers resource and links to Gatsby Benchmarks:
Gatsby Benchmark 2: Learning from career and labour market information
Gatsby Benchmark 4: Linking curriculum learning to careers

• Climate scientists widely agree that measures to reduce and capture our greenhouse gas emissions are not happening at a fast enough rate to prevent dangerous levels of climate change. Could artificially cooling Earth’s climate help? Dr Ben Kravitz, a climate modeller at Indiana University Bloomington in the US, is exploring how climate change could be addressed with the aid of geoengineering.

• This resource also includes an interview with Ben about his career path, as well as a section dedicated to careers in his field. If your students (or you) have questions for Ben, you/they can send them to him online. All you need to do is to go to the article online (see the Futurum link below), scroll down to the end and type in the question(s). Ben will reply!

• The activity sheet provides ‘talking points’ (based on Bloom’s Taxonomy) and activities to prompt students to reflect on Ben’s research.

This resource was first published on Futurum Careers, a free online resource and magazine aimed at encouraging 14-19-year-olds worldwide to pursue careers in science, tech, engineering, maths, medicine (STEM) and social sciences, humanities and the arts for people and the economy (SHAPE).

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