Indirect Impacts of Climate Change
Teacher Resources
Driving Question: What are the indirect impacts of climate change?
How is climate changing affecting human systems? In this lesson you’ll learn how the direct impacts of rising temperatures can affect things like food security, migration, health, and economics. The indirect impacts of climate change will have global implications, but some individuals and communities will be more affected as climate change makes existing inequalities more extreme.
- Identify and describe indirect impacts of climate change including food security, economics, migration, and health.
- Discuss how certain populations and communities are disproportionately affected by the impacts of climate change.
- Using writing or oral communication skills, describe climate change impacts on a personal or community level.
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Guiding Questions
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Observe
Skim the full infographic, paying attention to things like prominent colors, numbers, charts, and types of text. How do you know where to start and which direction to read? How do you know what numbers are most important? What concept is the focus of the graphic? What big questions do you have?
Key Ideas
- Why are mosquitoes a threat to human health?
- Historically, what was happening to the number of cases and geographical range of malaria?
- What regions bear most of the burden of vector-borne diseases?
- Why are we losing ground in the fight against mosquitoes?
- How do scientists predict climate change will impact malaria cases in the future?
Evaluate
- Warming temperatures are leading to indirect climate impacts, like the spread of vector-borne diseases. What are other ways climate change might impact human health?
Are Natural Disasters Actually Natural? Crash Course Climate & Energy #9
This Crash Course Climate & Energy video looks at the ways injustice within societal structures causes climate change to affect some more than others and discusses some of the work that environmental justice advocates are doing in response.
Key Ideas
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Guiding Questions
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Before you watch
Before you watch the video, it’s a good idea to open and skim the video transcript. And always read the questions below so you know what to look and listen for as you watch!
While you watch
- Why does this video begin with the example of the Rohingya?
- According to this video, what is climate justice?
- How does this video use the example coal plant placement to highlight the ways that environmental and climate justice are linked?
- What is redlining and how is it related to climate change?
- What are some other groups who generally see more harm from the impacts of climate change?
After you watch
- One of the big claims in this video is that a natural disaster only becomes a human-caused disaster when it impacts human communities and when societal inequity limits the ability to protect people from the disaster. Do you agree? Can you think of any examples when a natural disaster became a human-caused disaster?
Build a deeper understanding of the indirect impacts of climate change, using the Indirect Impacts Activity and Examples below.
