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Using AI to teach about Climate Change

As one of the major issues facing the world, climate change is an essential topic for today’s students to grapple with. Environmental issues can and should be discussed across disciplines so that students understand its scientific, social, economic, and political dimensions. Below are just a few ideas for how you can incorporate the use of AI into teaching and learning about climate change.

Use a chatbot to design a lesson plan on the impact of climate change on extreme whether

  1. Sample prompt: Create a 1 hour lesson for 8th grade science students on how the changing climate is causing natural disasters to become more severe. Include a case study on a country that is particularly vulnerable to severe weather.
  2. Sample output from Chat GPT:

Use a chatbot to design a simulation activity

  1. Sample prompt: Design a simulation activity where students act as climate change mitigation experts and help a small island nation protect itself against flooding. Include all necessary background information and materials.
  2. Sample output from ChatGPT: 

Note: After receiving this output, I asked ChatGPT to create the island nation profile that it suggested. See the full conversation here. 

Use Socrat.ai to have a socratic dialogue to expand on student’s previous knowledge about climate change

Some other assignments you could create with Socrat.ai include: 

  • A study buddy session on the causes of climate change
  • A debate-a-bot assignment on the best response to climate change 

Here’s how you can create an assignment on Socrat.ai: 

Use a chatbot to help students develop AI literacy skills 

  1. Ask ChatGPT or another chatbot to generate a climate report, like the ones released by the United Nations following an important climate conference.
    1. Then, students can conduct research to verify the data included in the AI generated report and add citations to the document. 
    2. Then, they can compare their report created collaboratively with AI to an actual UN report. 
    3. Lastly, ask students to reflect on what this exercise helped them learn about both Artificial Intelligence and climate change.