Climate Change Lesson 5: News Broadcast
In the first four lessons students explored climate change, the water cycle, the greenhouse effect and ways to reduce their carbon footprint. In this final lesson students will select one of the four topics and develop an "evening news" to share with the class or with the school if the students are interested. Students will form groups and develop a short presentation in the style of a news segment for their topic.
Climate change receives a decent amount of coverage in the news. An internet search will yield good results for students to observe and base their own news segment. It may be beneficial to assign watching at least one evening news broadcast as homework so students can get the feel of what a typical 30 minute news segment should include.
The purpose of this final lesson is so students can creatively take the information they have learned and put it in a familiar format to share with the class, thus providing an assessment on how well they learned the material presented.
Activity Level: High
Activity Time: 2 to 3 days to allow students to develop content for their news stories and rehearse their presentations.
Objectives:
Students will demonstrate their knowledge of climate change, the greenhouse effect, the water cycle and global warming by developing a "news broadcast" of stories about climate change.
Materials:
News Broadcast Homework handout
News Story handout
Knowledge:
Teacher: "We are going to finish our unit on climate change by creating a news stories about the four topics we covered and presenting them to the class in the form of a nightly news program."
Discuss with the students the format of a standard 30 minute news broadcast. Not all students may be familiar with the components of the nightly news. Share with them that most news programs follow a basic format:
- Headlines - could be two or more.
- Human interest story
- Weather
- Sports
Activity Intro:
Assign students into groups of 4 and have them draw from a hat to assign which climate change topic they will base their news story on. Have each group draw from a hat to determine which segment they will base their presentation on.
Lesson Overview
Pass out the Climate Change News Program handout to the students and have them get into their learning groups. Help them stay on track while they plan their news stories and work on their topics. Remind them that news stories will contain a brief description of what happened and where, then interview someone who was an eyewitness or a who is an expert on the topic. The weather news segment will need to include a map showing what's happening weather wise and also a forecast. The sports segment will need to come up with a fun way to include the Climate Change topic, but once again they can have interviews to include in their stories.
Once the students have their news stories written and everyone knows what their roles are, have the students take time to rehearse their stories. The students will need to work on interviews, asking questions and giving answers. Also remember that reporters will often stand in a location where some kind of activity is taking place behind them to help set the scene. The other members of the group could be acting out a scene behind the reporter why he or she gives their report.
Conclusion:
Have the students present their news stories to the class in the same format as a news broadcast. Select one or two students to be the "anchors". They will need to write lines to say when introducing news stories.
Teacher Resource:
Any props the students might need they will need to provide a list for the teacher. The weather report will need to include a map and perhaps another poster where they can display the forecast. Students need to provide lists of props they will need to complete their news story.
As an extension activity, if the school has access to a video camera, the news broadcast could be filmed like a news broadcast and presented to the school.
Student Resource:
News Broadcast Summary
Answer the questions as you watch a nightly news broadcast.
1. Was the entire news program 30 minutes or 60?
2. Did the news broadcast contain the following?
Headline stories. How many?
Human interest stories.
Weather report.
Sports.
Did any of the news stories include interviews with people?
Did the news stories begin by answering the five questions (who what where why and when)?
Climate Change News Program
Your group will work to create a news story, weather report or a sports related story based on one of the climate change topics. Recall the news program you watched at home. Use this paper to plan your news story and the roles each person will play.
Topic ________________________________________
News Segment ___________________________________________
Each member of your group will need to play a role. Most news stories have a reporter, and people to interview who were witnesses or are experts about the topic.
Roles
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Use this space to write down ideas for your news story you will report on.
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Remember to ask the teacher for help with any props you may need for your news story, weather report or sports story.
