Lesson plan: Water for all

This lesson for adult learners explores the global water crisis.

Female biologist testing water in a river

Christopher Graham

13 - 17

Adults

Intermediate B1

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The Climate Action in Language Education series

This lesson is part of our series of 'Climate Action in Language Education' teaching materials. There are twelve lesson plans in the series, available for teachers of primary, secondary and adult learners of English. See the full list of lesson plans in this series.

About this lesson plan

There is a global water crisis. In this lesson, the learners will use and develop their reading skills to gain a bigger understanding of the crisis, its causes and some possible solutions. They will go on to use some 21st-century skills such as collaboration and creativity to make some campaigning posters to create a greater awareness of the problem in their local communities.

The lesson plan and student materials have been designed to be used in either face-to-face classrooms or remote teaching contexts. There are two shorter reading texts to aid differentiation, to use with smaller classes or to use less paper.

Aims

During and after the lesson, learners will be able to demonstrate they can:

employ critical-thinking skills
read texts to find specific types of information
collaborate and share written information
create simple written messages that lead to action and awareness.

Time

90 minutes approximately or two 45-minute lessons. This can be a 60-minute single lesson with shorter time for tasks.

Materials

The materials can be downloaded below in PDF or PPTX format. The presentation contains the vocabulary activity and the sample poster to save some paper use.

Lesson plan for face-to-face classroom teaching
Lesson plan for remote teaching contexts
Presentation
Reading text 1
Reading text 2
Reading text 3
Sample poster
Shorter version of reading 1 and 2
Vocabulary worksheet

Stage one – Reading about the water crisis

Stage

Warmer

Briefly check that learners have an understanding of what the water crisis is by asking them to give some examples.
Guide them if needed by giving an example such as: Many rural communities globally have no clean water for drinking, washing or cooking.
Optional activity
Ask learners if they currently have unlimited access to water in their homes.
If learners answer yes, either ask them if they can think of a time when they didn’t have access to water at home and how it affected them or ask them how it would affect them if they didn’t have access to clean water at home.
If learners answer no, ask them how they manage or how they gain access to clean water.

Reading for specific information – collaboration

Tell learners that at the end of the lesson they will be making a poster explaining the water crisis and its causes. Explain that the poster will be designed to encourage people to take action about the water crisis.
Divide the learners into four groups of equal or near-equal numbers. Number the groups 1, 2, 3 and 4. Give each group the reading text that relates to their group number (1, 2, 3 or 4), or put copies of the readings on the wall and suggest learners read it from there. Each group must only look at its one text.
Ask the learners to read the texts and do the three tasks.
The tasks are on the reading text sheets, but they all have these three stages:
- Before reading – learners read the title and briefly discuss what they expect the text to be about.
- While reading – learners read the text and underline any information that might help them in their poster. Remind them that the poster is designed to encourage people to act. Each text has one example of this kind already underlined.
- After reading – learners discuss and agree a list of key pieces of information that might be used in their posters. Each individual learner must have a copy of the written list of ideas.
Encourage learners to check any new vocabulary in the text with their peers at group level.

Vocabulary discussion and development

Give each group a copy of the vocabulary sheet or put a copy on the wall that learners can read. At class level, go briefly through each of the items on the four vocabulary sheets, making any clarifications needed.

Stage two – Comparing ideas and agreeing a strategy

Stage

Planning a poster

Put the learners into new groups of at least four. The groups should be composed so that each group has at least one member from all the previous groups 1, 2, 3 and 4.
Tell learners that they are now going to work together to combine the key points from each of the reading texts (1–4) and agree two possible action points that they can put on their poster.
Remind the learners that the objective of the poster is to encourage people to act. Either put some copies of the sample poster on the wall and encourage learners to look at it or display the poster on a screen. Show them that it uses this structure:
- Climate change makes the air warmer. (Cause)
- Warm air from climate change increases rainfall in some places. (Problem)
- Flooding destroys crops and communities can’t feed themselves. (Result)
- Can you reduce your impact on climate change by recycling paper and glass? This reduces carbon dioxide production from burning waste. (Your actions)
• Suggest they can use this structure to make their two action points: Cause – Problem – Result – Your actions.
While they are working on their posters:
- If learners need technical help, remind them that climate change is caused largely by fossil fuels such as coal, gas, petrol, oil, trees and waste being burned and producing carbon dioxide.
- Suggest to learners that 'your actions' could include ways of reducing environmental impacts but also giving money to climate-change organisations or working to raise awareness. Encourage them to think of their own ideas too.
- Tell learners they will have a few more minutes in the next session/lesson to finalise the two action points for their posters.

Stage three – Making the posters

Stage

Writing engaging statements

Learners should go back to the groups where they finished the last lesson. Remind them they are making two action points for their posters. Give them another five to ten minutes to finalise their action points.
At class level ask learners the question, ‘What’s important for designing a poster?’ Lead a brief oral class-level discussion.
The key issues learners might to consider are below. You can put them on the whiteboard:
- The poster needs an objective – what result do we want from it?
- Who is the poster for?
- How can we make the poster eye-catching?
- Where can we put the poster?

Collaboration and agreement

Learners should now make their posters – one per group. They can use A4 or larger poster paper if available. Encourage them to use bright colours and add any graphics or pictures they wish to, but explain they are optional.
Take the posters from the group and, if possible, attach them to a wall as a display or put all the posters together on one table. Ask all learners to review all the posters and discuss what they like about them.

Giving feedback

At class level, lead a brief summary of what learners saw on the posters and what they liked about the design and the messages. Keep this informal and supportive, and not an evaluation.

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