Let’s talk about climate change

Joe | Apr 05, 2026Apr 03, 2026

LESSON OVERVIEW

The main objectives of this lesson are to:

• talk about environmental crisis and possible solutions;
• practise key climate change vocabulary;
• read about environmental issues and ways to tackle them.

In this lesson, students talk about climate change, read about approaches to tackling this issue and explore vocabulary for environmental crises (e.g. solar panels, wildfire, drought). They share their opinions, evaluate environmental challenges and discuss potential solutions. Students read descriptions of issues related to climate change, explore the pronunciation of words and work in pairs. They play a guessing game and answer questions about climate responsibility and solutions.

WARM-UP AND VOCABULARY

This lesson starts with a warm-up. Students look at the terms climate change and global warming and say what they think the difference between them is. After that, they read three people’s approaches to tackling climate change. Then, students explore climate change vocabulary and match words and phrases (e.g. emissions, pollution, renewable energy) with their definitions. Moving on, they examine the approaches from the previous exercise and order them from most to least difficult to take. Students also give reasons. Following that, they unscramble words from the previous task in questions about environmental challenges and energy solutions. Next, students answer the questions. They then look at different ways of tackling climate change (e.g. ban the use of cars in city centres). Students talk about their strengths, weaknesses and outcomes and share opinions. They use the target vocabulary from the lesson.

MORE VOCABULARY AND DISCUSSION

In this part of the lesson, students read descriptions of global environmental issues. They then practise climate change vocabulary and label pictures with words (e.g. deforestation, habitat, floods) from the texts. Afterwards, students answer questions about the pronunciation of words from the previous exercise. Next, they examine pairs of words (e.g. heatwave and blizzard) and identify shared features. Then, students work in pairs, choosing a word or phrase from the lesson. Student A says three words connected to it and Student B guesses the word. They swap roles and continue with five words each. Moving on, students continue working in pairs and examine questions and words. Student A chooses a card, reads the corresponding question and prepares an answer. They talk for one minute using the expressions from the task. Student B checks that their partner uses the words. They swap roles and continue with all the cards.

HOMEWORK/REVISION

This lesson also includes an additional task that you can use as homework or revision. In the task, students complete sentences with climate change vocabulary. They then finish five of them with their own ideas using words and phrases from the lesson. The task is available in the teacher’s version of the worksheet. You can print it and hand it out to your students. It’s also included in the e-lesson plan.

WORKSHEETS

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