Initial Publication Date: September 24, 2024

Humans can adapt social, built, and natural environments to better withstand the impacts of climate change.

Teaching about how scientists understand climate is supported by nine fundamental concepts:

A. Adapting and building resilience to climate impacts in all aspects of society saves lives; reduces structural, environmental, and economic damage; protects natural resources; helps preserve cultures; and often results in improved quality of life. Learn more about climate adaptation

There are 8 more fundamental concepts. See them all...

B. Adaptation and mitigation are complementary strategies for reducing the risks of climate change. Taking actions to adapt and build resilience to current and future extreme events and other climate changes, while dramatically reducing emissions of greenhouse gases, will also reduce loss of life and property and limit damage to ecosystems and human health.

C. Adaptation will become more expensive and less effective as the planet warms. Building a costly seawall today, for example, will be insufficient if water levels rise above the height of the wall in the future. Without mitigation, there will come a time when the impacts of climate change overwhelm our capacity to adapt.

D. Current adaptation efforts and investments are insufficient to address todayâ€™s risks and keep pace with future climate change. Adequate adaptation would involve not only scaling up efforts across a wider range of actors, sectors, and systems, but also more transformative adaptation involving profound shifts in our institutions, behaviors, values, or technologies. For example, transformative actions could shift housing development to less flood-prone areas to account for rising seas, or redesign buildings and cities to manage heat extremes. Learn more about transformative adaptation

E. People may be able to adapt and reduce their vulnerability in different ways, depending on their circumstances. For example, some communities and individuals may move to higher ground to avoid flooding and rising sea levels, choose crops that will thrive under new climate conditions, develop nature-based solutions such as restoring vegetation to lessen storm impacts, and adopt new technologies or building standards suited for new weather extremes. However, the ability to adapt may be limited by the capacity of a community or individual to address changing conditions, or by a risk or hazard exposure that is too great to overcome.

F. There is no one-size-fits-all model for adaptation and improved resilience. Adaptation will look different in different communities because risks, judgments about risk, resources, and potential solutions differ across groups of people and the places where they live and work.

G. Actions that increase risks are called maladaptation. For example, maladaptation can occur if infrastructure (like a levee or roadway) or a disaster response program encourages continued development in hazardous areas, leading to higher losses in the event of future disasters. Most often, maladaptation is an unintended consequence.

H. A fair, democratic, and community-based approach to assessing risks and planning adaptation measures can reduce the chances of unintentionally causing more harm to natural systems and the people who are affected by these decisions. Learn more about equity in adaptation

I. Adaptation often requires financial investment in new or enhanced technologies, infrastructure, and education. Investing in adaptation and resilience efforts undertaken by vulnerable populations can contribute to a more equitable future. Learn more about investments in adaptation

Bringing these ideas into your classroom

Students unfamiliar with climate action may benefit from an overview of adaptation vs. mitigation. Consider introducing examples of each to establish the concepts.

Examples of mitigation

Burn fewer fossil fuels; convert to carbon-free energy
Use energy more efficiently
Design cities, communities, and networks like food and transportation so they are less energy-intensive
Create new energy infrastructure that can be responsive to smaller, more variable, and more numerous inputs of energy, such as from wind turbines and solar farms.
Encourage adoption of plant-based diets
Improve or restore the Earth's ability to store carbon, such as in soils, forests, or wetlands

Examples of adaptation

Focus efforts on those who are vulnerable
Plan communities that are resilient to changes
Limit new construction in coastal and low-lying areas; adapt existing structures to withstand flooding
Limit new construction in fire-prone areas; adopt fire-resistant landscaping practices
Educate people on how to respond to extreme weather
Learn more about crops that can be grown in a wider range of conditions
Learn more about threatened ecosystems and species and take steps to protect them

Keep in mind that teaching students and the public about the necessity of adapting to climate hazards, such as droughts and extreme events, can be counter-productive and cause people to feel hopeless or succumb to denial. However, glossing over the severity of the impacts and the enormous social and environmental ramifications of climate change can lead to a society that is ill-prepared to deal with change. Finding a balanced approach and avoiding a "despair deficit" is good practice, both inside and outside the classroom. For more on climate change and mental health, see the CLEAN Climate Mental Health pages.

Teaching materials from the CLEAN collection

Middle school

Project Resilience: Resilience in Action - In this activity, students explore resilience toolkits to better understand their value. Students then draw upon these toolkits to design a resilience plan for their school campus as the culminating task of the larger Project Resilience.
Climate Mental Health: You Are a Climate Leader - In this lesson, students will read brief biographies of youth climate activists and then reflect on how they can take climate action in their own lives.
Rising Tides: Protect Your Home from the Waves - Warming oceans and melting landlocked ice caused by global climate change may result in rising sea levels. This rise in sea level combined with increased intensity and frequency of storms will produce storm surges that flood subways, highways, homes, and more. In this activity, students design and test adaptations to prepare for flooding caused by sea level rise.

High school

Adapting to a Changing World - In this activity, students assess individual and national opinions on climate change and explore strategies that communities are employing to adapt to aspects of climate change already affecting them in addition to those likely to affect them in the future.
HEART Force Wildfire Game - In this interactive game, students solve the challenges that their community faces during the course of a wildfire event by using available individual and community resources. Students work in three zone response teams to determine the responses they will take in each round as the wildfire situation evolves.
Your Place in Focus | Adaptation - This lesson guides students to connect the PBS Adaptation video series on climate adaptation to their own community. Students describe their community, identify climate impacts faced by their community, research how their community is adapting to those impacts, and then create a digital story about what they found.

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