Lesson video

Hello, everybody! Welcome to our final lesson about sustainability.

In this unit, we have been thinking about how we can protect the Earth's environment and think about how we can make sure we preserve resources for people in the future.

Why do you think it's important for us to look after our planet? That's a great reason! I think it's really important to look after the planet too.

Can you remember any of the things that you can do at home to live more sustainably? Great! We have been thinking about the importance of reusing items, reducing packaging, and recycling our waste.

Have you tried any of those things? That's great! I'm so glad you're trying hard to live sustainably.

I've been thinking about how I can reduce the amount of fossil fuels I burn when driving my car.

So I've started walking and cycling instead when places are close enough.

Let's have a look at what we're going to learn about today.

In today's lesson, we're going to start by recapping our knowledge from this topic.

We have learnt so much, so this is a really great opportunity to show off all of the things that you now know.

We are then going to think about one of the effects of global warming called climate change.

We will learn about the impact of climate change on our environment and then interpret some data to make recommendations about human activity.

Let's get started.

In this lesson, you're going to need an exercise book or paper and a pencil.

If you don't have one of these items, pause the video now and go and get them.

Press play when you're ready to start.

Ready to show me all the things you've learnt? Let's recap our knowledge together.

First, we learnt about natural materials.

Pause the video, and write down everything you can remember about natural materials.

Press play when you're ready to continue.

Right, let's see what I can remember.

If you missed anything, remember to add it in now.

A natural material is a material that comes from a plant, an animal, or the ground.

We had three examples.

Did you remember what they were? We had cotton, which comes from a plant, wool, which comes from an animal, and coal, which comes from the ground.

Can you think of another example of a natural resource? We also learnt about synthetic materials.

Pause the video, and write down everything you can remember about synthetic materials.

Remember to press play when you're ready to continue.

Okay, let's see what I can remember.

If you missed anything, remember to add it in now.

A synthetic material is something that is made by humans.

Sometimes these materials are called man-made.

We had three examples.

Could you remember what they were? They were glass, ceramics, and plastics.

What was the big problem with synthetic materials? Synthetic materials are not biodegradable, which means they take a really long time to break down in landfill sites.

Can you remember how long it takes for a plastic bottle to break down in the environment? 450 years! That is such a long time.

Can you remember what the problems were with landfill sites? Landfill sites don't look very nice, but they also produce harmful toxins and harmful pollutants.

Next, we learnt about sustainability.

Sustainability is about meeting the needs of the present, so people now, without sacrificing the ability of future generations, people in the future, to meet their needs.

Can you remember the three things that we can do to live more sustainably? We can reduce, reuse, and recycle.

What do we mean by the word recycle? Recycling is when we take a product that we've finished with and we turn it into something new that's useful.

So, for example, I might take an old rubber tyre and recycle it, and they might turn it into a pencil case.

That's a new material, something that is now useful.

We've also learnt about the increased greenhouse effect.

Human activity releases more carbon dioxide into the air.

What are humans doing that releases carbon dioxide? Humans are burning fossil fuels.

And when we burn fossil fuels, we produce carbon dioxide.

What's a scientific name for burning? The scientific name for burning is combustion.

What are the products of combustion? The products of combustion are carbon dioxide and water.

Carbon dioxide traps heat that is escaping from the Earth.

If there is more carbon dioxide, more heat is trapped.

What does that mean for the global temperature? If there is more carbon dioxide, more heat is trapped, which means that the global temperature rises, or gets hotter.

Now we're going to learn about climate change.

Climate change is happening as a result of global warming.

What is global warming? Global warming is the increase in the Earth's average global temperature due to the increased amounts of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

Where is all that carbon dioxide coming from? It's coming from human activity involved in burning fossil fuels.

So what is climate change? My turn.

Climate change is the changes to the Earth's environment as a result of global warming.

Your turn.

So how is the environment changing? The oceans are getting more acidic, extreme weather events, such as hurricanes, are happening more often, the polar ice caps are melting, and sea levels are rising.

We're going to learn about each of these changes in more detail at the end of the lesson.

Pause the video now, and write down the definition of climate change and four examples.

Press play when you're ready to continue.

So what's causing climate change? Well, we know that global warming is causing climate change.

But what is causing global warming? Can you remember? Humans are causing global warming by burning fossil fuels.

Burning fossil fuels releases carbon dioxide, and increased amounts of carbon dioxide causes the global temperature to rise.

Pause the video, and write down what is causing climate change.

Climate change is caused by global warming, global warming is caused by increased amounts of carbon dioxide in the air, and the increased carbon dioxide in the air is caused by human activity, which involves burning fossil fuels.

Can you remember what humans do that releases carbon dioxide from combustion? We drive cars that burn petrol, we generate electricity in coal-powered fire stations, and we heat our homes using oil and gas.

Now it's time to test our knowledge.

I'm going to read the questions and then give you a chance to pause the video to answer them.

What is climate change? Question one, what is happening to the amount of carbon dioxide in the air? What is happening to the global temperature? Question three, what is happening to the environment as a result of global warming? And question four, how are humans responsible for this? Remember to answer your questions in a full sentence.

Pause the video now, and have a go.

Press play when you're ready to continue.

Let's go through the answers.

Remember to tick the answers you got right, and fix the ones you need to.

Question one, the amount of carbon dioxide in the air is increasing.

Tick if you got it right.

Fix it if you didn't.

Question two, the global temperature is increasing because more heat is being trapped by greenhouse gases.

What might you have written instead of greenhouse gases? You might have written carbon dioxide.

Carbon dioxide is an example of a greenhouse gas.

So if you've written the global temperature is increasing because more heat is being trapped by carbon dioxide, you can also tick your answer.

The environment is changing as a result of global warming.

This is called climate change.

Question four, humans are responsible for the increase in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere due to the burning of fossil fuels to generate electricity and power cars.

If you need some more time to correct your answer, pause the video, and press play when you're ready to continue.

Let's have a look a bit closer at some of the environmental impacts called climate change.

We're going to record our knowledge of these changes in a table.

Make sure you pause the video after each change to make excellent notes.

Pause the video now, and copy this table onto your paper.

Press play when you're ready to learn about the changes.

Firstly, let's look at ocean acidification.

Find the column for ocean acidification in your table.

Ocean acidification happens when carbon dioxide from the atmosphere dissolves in the oceans, making it more acidic.

Ocean acidification happens when carbon dioxide in the atmosphere dissolves in the oceans, making it more acidic.

When does ocean acidification happen? It happens when carbon dioxide in the atmosphere dissolves in the ocean, making it more acidic.

As a result of the oceans becoming more acidic, animals that live in the sea are harmed and can even die.

Coral reefs, like the one off the coast of Australia, called the Great Barrier Reef, which are normally filled with beautiful, colourful coral, becomes bleached.

This means that they lose their colour.

What is the word bleached mean? It means that they lose their colour.

When they lose their colour, it can kill the coral and animals that rely on the coral for a place to live, stay safe from predators, or eat.

Why is ocean acidification a problem? It's a problem because coral reefs can become bleached or die, and other sea life cannot survive.

Pause the video, and complete your table.

When you've made all of your notes, press play to continue.

Climate change means that extreme weather events, such as hurricanes, are more likely.

A hurricane is a huge gust of swirling wind that carries so much force, they can pick up cars and destroy houses.

More hurricanes means more destruction and flooding and significant damage to properties and risk to life.

Why are extreme weather events a problem? Hurricanes and other extreme weather events cause huge destruction to properties and can also risk people's lives.

Pause the video now, and complete your table.

Press play when you're ready to continue.

Finally, we're going to think about the melting ice caps.

Have a look at that picture of the polar bear.

What will happen to the polar bear if his habitat melts? Well, he won't have anywhere to live anymore.

Rising global temperatures means that the polar ice caps melt.

If that happens, sea levels will rise, flooding is more likely, animals, such as polar bears, living in polar ecosystems will struggle to survive, and whole cities could become submerged with water, which means that cities could become underwater and you'd have to move away from places at the coast.

Why is it a problem if the ice caps melt? It's a problem if the ice caps melt because the sea levels will rise, flooding is more likely, animals will lose their homes and struggle to survive, and whole cities could become submerged with water.

Pause the video, and have a go at completing your table.

When you've made all the notes you want to, press play to continue.

So we know that climate change is a problem, and we also know that humans are responsible.

So what can we do to make things better? We are going to look at some data about the amount of carbon dioxide released per person for different modes of transport to help us make recommendations to others about how to travel.

Let's look at this graph together.

It shows us the amount of carbon dioxide released by one person in different modes of transport.

Which mode of transport releases the most carbon dioxide? Planes release the most carbon dioxide.

Which releases the least carbon dioxide? The Eurostar.

The Eurostar is a train.

It can get you from London to Europe.

Why do we want our modes of transport to release less carbon dioxide? We want to release less carbon dioxide because we know that releasing more carbon dioxide results in global warming and then climate change.

Have a look at the car with one passenger compared to the car with four passengers.

Why do you think the amount of carbon dioxide is lower if there are four people in the car rather than one? This graph is showing us the carbon dioxide per person, per kilometre travelled.

So if we have four passengers in one car, that is the same amount of carbon dioxide as one passenger in one car.

If we share lifts with other people, we reduce the number of cars on the road.

Less cars means less carbon dioxide overall.

Why is it a good idea to share lifts? It's a good idea to share lifts because if we have more people in one car, it reduces the number of cars on the road, and less cars means less carbon dioxide.

What recommendations would you make to your friends and family when looking at this graph? You might tell them to fly less or use the train more or share lifts.

Pause the video, and have a go at the questions.

Press play when you're ready to see the answers.

Number one, the least sustainable mode of transport is an aeroplane.

Why is the least sustainable mode of transport an aeroplane? An aeroplane releases more carbon dioxide per person.

Number two, the most sustainable way to travel is the Eurostar.

Why is the Eurostar the most sustainable way to travel? The Eurostar is the most sustainable way to travel because it produces the least amount of carbon dioxide per passenger.

It is better to car share when driving to the same place, as less carbon dioxide is produced because there are less cars on the roads.

Pause the video if you need to make any more changes.

Press play when you're ready to continue.

So our last big question to discuss with your family, do you think that humans need to change their behaviour to live more sustainably? What do you think? It's great to hear your thoughts.

Make sure you discuss these ideas with your friends and family, and find out what they think too.

Thank you so much for all your hard work on this unit from Oak Academy.

We have learnt so much about our planet and how we can live more sustainably.

I hope that you have enjoyed learning about it too.

If you'd like to share your work with Oak National, please ask your parent or carer to share your work on Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter, tagging @OakNational and #LearnwithOak.