Teacher’s notes
Ranking environmental problems
Integrated strands
Science concept
Environmental problems can be ranked according to different criteria, for example, severity (school, local, national or global contexts), visibility, ability to be solved, and so on.
Nature of Science Theme
- Scientists’ investigations are influenced by their communities…
- Scientists may give priority to solving problems that are likely to have the greatest impact on the welfare of the planet, whether on a local, national, or global level.
DSSA Investigation Focus
- Students’ relationships with other people affect their investigations…
- What students find important may be influenced by what other people find important.
Rationale
Which environmental problems should be dealt with first? In this activity students are introduced to a process for ranking environmental problems. Developing criteria for deciding which problems are most important requires fine judgment, as both students and scientists are influenced by their communities.
Activity
Curriculum level 3-4 Planet Earth and beyond Topic
Environmental studies
Types of investigation
Identifying and classifying, Researching
What you need
- Nine ‘problem’ pictures for ranking.
Note: Supporting activity resources are provided below.
Focus
- How do you decide what is an environmental problem?
- What sorts of things affect your view of what an environmental problem is?
- Will your judgment of environmental problems be the same as other students’ views? Will they be the same as scientists’ views?
- What questions do you need to ask to if something is an environmental problem?
- How do you determine which problems need more urgent attention?
Ranking problem cards in a diamond pattern
Exploration
- In groups, give students access to the problem cards.
- Discuss with them what each card depicts, and have them share their ideas about why this might be a problem.
- Tell them they will be ranking the cards in order of most to least severe problem. As a group they need to establish their group’s criteria for making these decisions (this may include the context of the problem, that is, local, national or global).
- Get students to rank the problem cards, according to their criteria, in a diamond pattern.
- Have them compare their rankings with the other groups, and give reasons for their ranking decisions.
- For each problem card, get students to brainstorm about what scientists will need to find out in order to address the problem, and begin to seek a solution.
Extension
- This activity can be repeated with a focus on solving the problem.
Brainstorm possible solutions for the problems on the activity cards.
Then rank them using the statements given below, for example:
- solving this problem is most/least important to human (and/or Planet Earth’s) survival
- this problem is most/least easily solved
- this problem is most/least likely to be solved in our lifetime
- this problem should (in my opinion) get most/least immediate attention.
- Students’ rankings may be similar for all these, or they may change with the change of focus.
Reflection
- Did all groups have the same card in the Most position? Why/why not?
- Which problem do you think scientists would think of as the most severe problem? Why? How might you investigate this? (For example, invite a scientist to talk to the class.)
- What other work do scientists do besides solving environmental problems?
- Do you think we should rely on scientists to take care of our environmental problems?
- How much choice do you think a scientist has in what they decide to investigate?
Activity resources
- Environmental problems (PDF 1.1MB)
- Nine problem photos.