Lesson goal: Students can discuss environmental problems and solutions, make predictions about the coming decades and use the future perfect and future continuous.
Add the lesson to get your own copies of the word set and exercises; the lesson opens in the builder, where you can adjust the steps and teach it.
Lesson plan
- 1
Warm-up
Questions to get the student talking and lead into the topic.
- Which environmental problem worries you most?
- What, if anything, have you changed in your daily life to help the environment?
- Do you think your town will look very different in thirty years?
- 2
New words
Meet the words and practise them in games.
WordsearchMaze chasecarbon footprint · deforestation · greenhouse gases · emissions · fossil fuels · biodiversity · sustainable · depletion · habitat loss · extinction · contamination · landfill · carbon-neutral · rising sea levels · single-use
All words in the set - 3
Exercises
The lesson's words in context. Only you see the answers.
- Fill the gap
Cutting down on meat and flights is the quickest way to reduce your carbon ___.
Answer: footprint - Fill the gap
Many countries have banned ___ plastic items such as straws and cutlery.
Answer: single-use - Fill the gap
By 2040, the city ___ have replaced all its diesel buses with electric ones.
Answer: will - Fill the gap
This time next year, we'll ___ living in a house powered entirely by solar panels.
Answer: be - Multiple choice
The variety of plant and animal life in a particular area is called ...
biodiversityhabitat lossdeforestationdepletion - Multiple choice
Which sentence describes an action that will be finished before a point in the future?
By 2035, scientists will have mapped every coral reef in the region.In 2035, scientists will be mapping the coral reefs in the region.Scientists map the coral reefs in the region every year.Scientists are going to start mapping the coral reefs next year. - Multiple choice
When a resource such as fish or fresh water is used up faster than it can be replaced, we talk about its ...
depletioncontaminationextinctionemissions - True / false
Read: "Fifteen years ago the river was so contaminated by factory waste that swimming was forbidden. After the factories were fined and a new treatment plant was built, fish gradually returned. Scientists predict that by the end of the decade otters will have recolonised the whole valley." Swimming in the river was once banned because of factory pollution.
Answer: True - True / false
Read the text again. Otters have already returned to the whole valley.
Answer: False - Discussion question
Describe how your town or country will have changed by 2050 to cope with the climate crisis. Use the future perfect and the future continuous.
Sample answer: By 2050, I hope we will have stopped burning coal altogether, and most homes will have installed solar panels. People will probably be travelling to work by electric tram rather than by car, and the city will be growing more of its own food on rooftops. Sadly, I suspect some species in our forests will have disappeared by then because of habitat loss.
- Fill the gap
- 4
Speaking
The student answers using the new words.
- Should governments ban petrol and diesel cars sooner, even if it is unpopular?
- Who should pay most for fighting climate change: rich countries, big companies or individuals?
- Is it fair to ask poorer countries to stop deforestation when richer countries cut down their own forests long ago?
- Are companies' claims to be carbon-neutral honest, or mostly marketing?
- Are you optimistic or pessimistic about the planet in 2050? Why?
- 5
Review
A quiz on the lesson's words. With a student, it's homework on their link.
Quiz