Y9 Climate and Change......

The presentations have started....

Please read the summary below and leave a comment about each others presentations.

Hopefully my Year 9 class will have completed their presentations by P1 on Monday morning. The task was to research future problems faced by the UK (and indeed the rest of the world) and design solutions to such problems. The first 4 groups who presented today set a high standard, drawing on current Geo-engineering methods and demonstrating excellent innovative thinking.

1. Emma and Bryony kicked off proceedings with a superb business pitch looking at a new "product" called e-tunnels. They would use excess floodwater to drive turbines and create clean energy, using our increased extreme rainfall in the UK to tackle the very problem that has caused such frequent heavy downpours (climate change). However if such a system did work, to end flooding, it would leave the giant turbines underground redundant! They also created a working model and placed a huge emphasis on the background facts about how much industry pollutes our world:

 "40% of the worlds pollution is created by factories..."

Therefore Bryony and Emma identified a market for their product, a great start girls, but will it be enough?

2. Next up was Brianna, Isobel, Pia and Saira who started the presentation with a clever cartoon depicting the globe as a melting ice cream cone! They started by introducing us to the global issues and highlighting the issues by quoting that:

"the 10 warmest years on record have all occurred since 1997"

So how did they suggest solving this problem? By relying on more renewable energy as part of our energy mix and also using bio-fuel to power our cars. They also wanted to preserve our "global lungs," by protecting the worlds forests. 

One controversial method was to replicate a volcano and how the ash released during an eruption can lower global temperatures. However as pointed out by someone in the crowd this would be very expensive and high risk!

Secondly they suggested using a system of mirrors floating in our atmosphere to reflect back the solar radiation. Some pupils questioned the strength of the mirror and the microscopic thickness. However the most exciting solution was to pump water into the atmosphere to generate more cloud cover to build upon the natural albedo effect that also reflects back energy. This would involve giant floating water pumps to spay at high pressure moisture into the atmosphere, an interesting concept...

3. Finally Emily and Bryony. M, suggested the most right wing approach: ban the sale of a second car to homeowners, thereby reducing CO2 emissions by half. They also promoted the use of car sharing lanes and would invest heavily in public transport networks to get people off the roads and onto rail services. This had everyone up in arms, yet the girls dealt with the questions well!

What did you think? Leave a message below and click on the comment icon....

Thanks for a great lesson...
Mr. J!