During the past 100 years, human behaviors have been affecting our world’s climate. As human activity increases greenhouse gases and the enhanced greenhouse effect subsequently warms the planet and causes changes in climate patterns. Climate change impacts people, economies, and ecosystems. Behavior choices, large and small, can affect the degree of climate change. Small changes may not seem like they could make a difference, but over time and in combination with others doing the same actions, each small contribution adds up.

There is uncertainty about how climate is changing and may continue to change as a result of emissions of greenhouse gases contributed by human activities in the last 150 years. Uncertainties includes future output from the sun, eruptions of volcanoes, levels of greenhouse gas emissions, changes in land use, deforestation trends, and effects of extreme weather conditions complicate projections. There is still work to be done on factoring in the influence of the ocean circulation and climate feed backs as well.

Mitigation tackles the causes of climate change and adaptation addresses the effects of climate change. There are many opportunities for students and their schools to work together with the community to help mitigate the generation of greenhouse gases. Service-learning is a pedagogy that combines curriculum with service projects to create real-world learning opportunities while making a positive difference in a participant’s community. Higher level projects emerge from in-depth assessment of needs, inclusion of the community served and periodic adjustments to projects based on challenges or successes identified along the way. This lesson begins by determining the community (the student’s peers), the issue (climate change) and the project to address that issue in the community (Do One Thing education). The resources section contains links for more advanced service-learning projects if you are interested in following this up with more complex education goals.

This lesson is based on the ‘Do One Thing’ (DOT) education campaign, a national project led by the Alliance for Climate Education, a nonpartisan 501c3 organization. DOT aims to teach middle and high school students about climate change and what the younger generation can do to make a difference for the environment. Registering your class(es) on the site is not required, but can offer motivation and a sense of belonging to national student efforts to impact climate change. Additionally, very motivated students can continue with the organization for more advanced education projects around climate change.

The DOT education campaign is natural link to Michigan’s Climate Challenge Pledge effort. “Taking the pledge” means making a voluntary commitment to reduce greenhouse gases through one or more actions that can help Michigan proactively address the threats that climate change pose on our environment. More than 50 actions are identified on a Climate Change Tip Sheet that covers what an individual can do to reduce greenhouse gas emissions where he/she lives, works, or learns. An online form can be filled out to indicate what you will be doing to meet the challenge of climate change.