GeographyClimate: why the world's weather differs30 min★★★ difficulty

A warming world: who is affected?

Climate change is not one event — it lands differently in different places. This lesson traces causes, then effects on people and wildlife from the Arctic to Bangladesh.

Lesson overview

What you'll learn in this lesson

Understand how human and physical processes interact to influence, and be influenced by, climate change

Key learning points

• Natural and human causes
• Effects in the Arctic
• Effects in Bangladesh
• Mitigate and adapt

This lesson at a glance

30 minutes
19 parts to scroll through
4 quick checks
Marked quiz at the end
Gentle pace: short sittings with pauses

Words to know

physicalprocessesinteractinfluenceinfluenced

Scroll down — the lesson carries on below

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A warming world: who is affected?

An English teaching video on this topic from Crash Course Kids. Watch it, then scroll down for the lesson.

In a nutshell

Understand how human and physical processes interact to influence, and be influenced by, climate change

What you already know

Part 2 of 19

Before we start

What you already know

You know burning fossil fuels releases carbon dioxide.

Key words

Part 3 of 19

Key words

Words you'll need today

greenhouse effect: Gases in the atmosphere trapping heat that would otherwise escape to space.
mitigation: Actions that reduce the causes of climate change.
adaptation: Actions that help people cope with its effects.

Learning cycle

Part 4 of 19

Learning cycle 1 of 2

Part 1 — Causes

A short piece of teaching, then a check to make sure it has landed.

Explore the idea

Part 5 of 19

Learn

Natural and human causes

Natural factors — volcanic eruptions, small changes in Earth's orbit — have always nudged climate. Since about 1850 people have added huge amounts of carbon dioxide by burning coal, oil and gas and cutting forests. Global average temperature has risen about 1.2°C.

Explore the idea

Part 6 of 19

Learn

Effects in the Arctic

The Arctic is warming around four times faster than the global average. Sea ice shrinks, so polar bears lose hunting platforms and Inuit communities lose safe travel routes over the ice.

Quick check

Part 7 of 19

Quick check

Global average temperature has risen by about...

Quick check

Part 8 of 19

Quick check

The Arctic is warming...

Reset break

Part 9 of 19

Pause

That's sitting 1 of 2 done

Stretch, get a drink, look out of the window. There is no timer and nothing is counting down — your place is saved, so you can come back in five minutes or tomorrow.

Stop here for now

Learning cycle

Part 10 of 19

Learning cycle 2 of 2

Part 2 — Effects and responses

A short piece of teaching, then a check to make sure it has landed.

Explore the idea

Part 11 of 19

Learn

Effects in Bangladesh

Much of Bangladesh is less than 10 m above sea level. Rising seas and stronger cyclones push salt water onto farmland, so families switch from rice to salt-tolerant crops or shrimp farming — or move to cities like Dhaka.

Explore the idea

Part 12 of 19

Learn

Mitigate and adapt

Mitigation cuts the cause: wind and solar power, insulating homes, planting trees. Adaptation copes with the effect: flood barriers like the Thames Barrier, cyclone shelters, drought-resistant seeds. Good answers name one of each.

Quick check

Part 13 of 19

Quick check

Salt water on Bangladesh farmland leads some farmers to...

Quick check

Part 14 of 19

Quick check

Building a flood barrier is an example of...

Investigate evidence

Part 15 of 19

Evidence 1 of 1

primary

Global temperature anomaly record

NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, 1880–present

The ten warmest years on record have all occurred since 2014. Global average temperature is now about 1.2°C above the 1880–1900 average. Arctic warming is running at roughly twice the global rate.

An 'anomaly' is the difference from a long-term average — the clearest way to see warming through the noise of individual hot and cold years.

Think like a historian

Why do scientists show 'anomalies' rather than actual temperatures, and what does the Arctic figure suggest about where the effects will be felt first?

Source: Open scientific dataset based on weather stations worldwide.

View the archive record ↗

Common mix-ups

Part 16 of 19

Common mix-ups

Things people often get wrong

Confusing the ozone hole with climate change.
Saying mitigation and adaptation are the same thing.
Assuming effects are the same everywhere.

Challenge round

Part 17 of 19

Game · Sort it

Which of these are true?

Drag each card into the right column. Tap a card first if dragging is fiddly.

True

Not true

Mastery quiz

Part 18 of 19

Marked quiz

End of lesson quiz: A warming world: who is affected?

4 questions, marked with the reasoning shown. No timer.

1. Switching to wind power is...
2. A human cause of climate change is...
3. Global average temperature has risen by about...
4. The Arctic is warming...

Lesson round-up

Part 19 of 19

Lesson round-up

Ready when you are

Quiz score

Not sat

Games

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Points this lesson

Best run

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Do the work

Your written work for this lesson

This is the part you'd do in your book at school. Pick the pieces below, write here or on paper, and photograph anything you draw or work out.

Case study

Flooding on the River Calder

The town of Harbrook sits where a steep valley opens onto a flat floodplain. In December 2015, 120 mm of rain fell in 36 hours onto ground that was already saturated. The river rose 2.4 m in five hours, and 380 homes and 54 businesses flooded. Two roads and the railway closed for eleven days.

Geographers pointed to physical causes — steep slopes, impermeable rock, heavy rainfall — and human causes: moorland drained upstream, new housing built on the floodplain, and drains designed for smaller storms.

Since then the town has planted 40 hectares of woodland upstream, built leaky dams in small streams, and raised flood walls to 1.8 m. In the storm of 2020 the peak river level was 0.3 m lower and 40 homes flooded, not 380.

Written for Good Learning Co.

Reading questions

List two physical and two human causes of the 2015 flood.
Explain how planting woodland upstream lowers the river's peak level.
Using the figures, judge how successful the scheme has been. Quote data in your answer.

Source for this lesson

Use this for the source work task below.

Global temperature anomaly record

primary

NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, 1880–present

The ten warmest years on record have all occurred since 2014. Global average temperature is now about 1.2°C above the 1880–1900 average. Arctic warming is running at roughly twice the global rate.

An 'anomaly' is the difference from a long-term average — the clearest way to see warming through the noise of individual hot and cold years.

Source: Open scientific dataset based on weather stations worldwide.

View the original record ↗

Case study notes
Writing
Write the place, the facts and the figures from this lesson so you can revise them later.
Half a page
Explain answer
Writing
Answer in full sentences, giving causes and effects. Use one figure or place name as evidence.
8–10 sentences
Map or sketch
Diagram
Draw the map, cross-section or field sketch with a key, title and labels, then photograph it.
1 map with a key
Data work
Working out
Plot your figures as a graph on paper and write one sentence about the pattern.
1 graph + 1 sentence

Write your answer, notes or working here

Saved as you type.

Photos of paper work, diagrams or working outHow many minutes did the written work take?

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