Climate Change Refugee Story
July 06, 2023
As the climate changes and more of the planet becomes uninhabitable, the number of refugees will increase. Some projections put the number at over a billion by 2050, although these rely on fairly conservative estimates for climate change so the numbers may well be higher. According to the UN Refugee Agency,
Climate change is the defining crisis of our time and displacement is one of its most devastating consequences.
The past nine years were the warmest on record. Climate-fuelled crises are already a devastating reality, forcing people to flee and making life more precarious for people already uprooted from their homes.
Safe and sustainable solutions for displaced people are becoming harder to achieve as climate change adds to degraded and dangerous conditions in areas of origin and refuge.
From catastrophic flooding in Pakistan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and parts of the Sahel, to relentless drought and suffering in Afghanistan, Madagascar and the Horn of Africa, millions were displaced in 2022 alone.
The climate crisis is driving displacement and making life harder for those already forced to flee. Entire populations are already suffering the impacts of climate change, but vulnerable people living in some of the most fragile and conflict-affected countries are often disproportionately affected.
Refugees, internally displaced people (IDPs) and stateless people are on the frontlines of the climate emergency. Many are living in climate “hotspots”, where they typically lack the resources to adapt to an increasingly hostile environment.
The impacts of climate change are numerous and may both trigger displacement and worsen living conditions or hamper return for those who have already been displaced. Limited natural resources, such as drinking water, are becoming even scarcer in many parts of the world that host refugees. Crops and livestock struggle to survive where conditions become too hot and dry, or too cold and wet, threatening livelihoods. In such conditions, climate change can act as a threat multiplier, exacerbating existing tensions and adding to the potential for conflicts.
Hazards resulting from the increasing intensity and frequency of extreme weather events, such as abnormally heavy rainfall, prolonged droughts, desertification, environmental degradation, or sea-level rise and cyclones are already causing an average of more than 20 million people to leave their homes and move to other areas in their countries each year.
Some people are forced to cross borders in the context of climate change and disasters and may in some circumstances be in need of international protection. Refugee and human rights law therefore have an important role to play in this area.
The Global Compact on Refugees, affirmed by an overwhelming majority in the UN General Assembly in December 2018, directly addresses this growing concern. It recognizes that “climate, environmental degradation and disasters increasingly interact with the drivers of refugee movements”.
In this assignment, student try to put themselves in the shoes of someone displaced by the effects of climate change, and convey what that would mean to the refugee. The medium is left up to the student: a traditional narrative story, a diary, news articles, tweets, or whatever else their teacher approves.
Linked in the grade 10 climate unit.
Climate change is the defining crisis of our time and displacement is one of its most devastating consequences.
The past nine years were the warmest on record. Climate-fuelled crises are already a devastating reality, forcing people to flee and making life more precarious for people already uprooted from their homes.
Safe and sustainable solutions for displaced people are becoming harder to achieve as climate change adds to degraded and dangerous conditions in areas of origin and refuge.
From catastrophic flooding in Pakistan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and parts of the Sahel, to relentless drought and suffering in Afghanistan, Madagascar and the Horn of Africa, millions were displaced in 2022 alone.
The climate crisis is driving displacement and making life harder for those already forced to flee. Entire populations are already suffering the impacts of climate change, but vulnerable people living in some of the most fragile and conflict-affected countries are often disproportionately affected.
Refugees, internally displaced people (IDPs) and stateless people are on the frontlines of the climate emergency. Many are living in climate “hotspots”, where they typically lack the resources to adapt to an increasingly hostile environment.
The impacts of climate change are numerous and may both trigger displacement and worsen living conditions or hamper return for those who have already been displaced. Limited natural resources, such as drinking water, are becoming even scarcer in many parts of the world that host refugees. Crops and livestock struggle to survive where conditions become too hot and dry, or too cold and wet, threatening livelihoods. In such conditions, climate change can act as a threat multiplier, exacerbating existing tensions and adding to the potential for conflicts.
Hazards resulting from the increasing intensity and frequency of extreme weather events, such as abnormally heavy rainfall, prolonged droughts, desertification, environmental degradation, or sea-level rise and cyclones are already causing an average of more than 20 million people to leave their homes and move to other areas in their countries each year.
Some people are forced to cross borders in the context of climate change and disasters and may in some circumstances be in need of international protection. Refugee and human rights law therefore have an important role to play in this area.
The Global Compact on Refugees, affirmed by an overwhelming majority in the UN General Assembly in December 2018, directly addresses this growing concern. It recognizes that “climate, environmental degradation and disasters increasingly interact with the drivers of refugee movements”.
In this assignment, student try to put themselves in the shoes of someone displaced by the effects of climate change, and convey what that would mean to the refugee. The medium is left up to the student: a traditional narrative story, a diary, news articles, tweets, or whatever else their teacher approves.
Linked in the grade 10 climate unit.
Physics Haiku
July 06, 2023
Physics is a very mathematical science. Yet paradoxically, physicists are often very poetical people. Poets, after all, distill the most meaning into the fewest words.
In this assignment students write five haiku (or limericks) abut a physic topic. I find it useful as a fun review activity.
Linked in the grade 11 and grade 12 physics pages.
In this assignment students write five haiku (or limericks) abut a physic topic. I find it useful as a fun review activity.
Linked in the grade 11 and grade 12 physics pages.
In Our Time: Eclipses
March 29, 2022
In Our Time is a wonderful series on BBC Radio 4.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss solar eclipses, some of life’s most extraordinary moments, when day becomes night and the stars come out before day returns either all too soon or not soon enough, depending on what you understand to be happening. In ancient China, for example, there was a story that a dragon was eating the sun and it had to be scared away by banging pots and pans if the sun were to return. Total lunar eclipses are more frequent and last longer, with a blood moon coloured red like a sunrise or sunset. Both events have created the chance for scientists to learn something remarkable, from the speed of light, to the width of the Atlantic, to the roundness of Earth, to discovering helium and proving Einstein’s Theory of General Relativity.
Linked in the grade 9 space unit.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss solar eclipses, some of life’s most extraordinary moments, when day becomes night and the stars come out before day returns either all too soon or not soon enough, depending on what you understand to be happening. In ancient China, for example, there was a story that a dragon was eating the sun and it had to be scared away by banging pots and pans if the sun were to return. Total lunar eclipses are more frequent and last longer, with a blood moon coloured red like a sunrise or sunset. Both events have created the chance for scientists to learn something remarkable, from the speed of light, to the width of the Atlantic, to the roundness of Earth, to discovering helium and proving Einstein’s Theory of General Relativity.
Linked in the grade 9 space unit.
In Our Time: The Evolution of Crocodiles
March 29, 2022
In Our Time is a wonderful series on BBC Radio 4.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the remarkable diversity of the animals that dominated life on land in the Triassic, before the rise of the dinosaurs in the Jurassic, and whose descendants are often described wrongly as 'living fossils'. For tens of millions of years, the ancestors of alligators and Nile crocodiles included some as large as a bus, some running on two legs like a T Rex and some that lived like whales. They survived and rebounded from a series of extinction events but, while the range of habitats of the dinosaur descendants such as birds covers much of the globe, those of the crocodiles have contracted, even if the animals themselves continue to evolve today as quickly as they ever have.
Linked in the grade 11 biology page.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the remarkable diversity of the animals that dominated life on land in the Triassic, before the rise of the dinosaurs in the Jurassic, and whose descendants are often described wrongly as 'living fossils'. For tens of millions of years, the ancestors of alligators and Nile crocodiles included some as large as a bus, some running on two legs like a T Rex and some that lived like whales. They survived and rebounded from a series of extinction events but, while the range of habitats of the dinosaur descendants such as birds covers much of the globe, those of the crocodiles have contracted, even if the animals themselves continue to evolve today as quickly as they ever have.
Linked in the grade 11 biology page.
In Our Time: Corals
March 29, 2022
In Our Time is a wonderful series on BBC Radio 4.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the simple animals which informed Charles Darwin's first book, The Structure and Distribution of Coral Reefs, published in 1842. From corals, Darwin concluded that the Earth changed very slowly and was not fashioned by God. Now coral reefs, which some liken to undersea rainforests, are threatened by human activity, including fishing, pollution and climate change.
Linked in the grade 9 biology unit, grade 10 climate unit, and grade 11 biology page.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the simple animals which informed Charles Darwin's first book, The Structure and Distribution of Coral Reefs, published in 1842. From corals, Darwin concluded that the Earth changed very slowly and was not fashioned by God. Now coral reefs, which some liken to undersea rainforests, are threatened by human activity, including fishing, pollution and climate change.
Linked in the grade 9 biology unit, grade 10 climate unit, and grade 11 biology page.
Teaching Science