Climate Vocabulary
Provided by: OER Project|Published on: August 14, 2025|Last updated: September 26, 2026
Grades: 6, 7, 8
Type: Lesson Plans
Subjects: Earth and Space Sciences, English Language Arts
Authors: OER Project: Climate
Location: Earth
This resource has been reviewed by SubjectToClimate's climate scientists and verified for scientific accuracy and up-to-date information. Learn about our review process →
This resource has been reviewed by SubjectToClimate's climate scientists and verified for scientific accuracy and up-to-date information. Learn about our review process →
Synopsis
- In this module from the OER Project: Climate, students will work with climate change-related terms through games and other activities.
- Students will explore commonly misused words, play a vocabulary game, create trivia questions, and complete a Mad Libs to become more familiar with and proficient in climate change vocabulary.
- This is one of many lessons in the online Climate course by OER Project.
Teaching Materials
Positives
- This module includes multiple opportunities for students to interact with each other.
- Students will love coming up with trivia questions to stump their classmates.
Prerequisites
- Teachers will need to assemble the spinners for the vocabulary game ahead of time.
- This module is intended for students who are already familiar with climate change and some related terms.
Differentiation & Implementation
- For the Mad Libs activity, students may benefit from a printed copy or knowing how to use strikethrough in a document editor to use the process of elimination and have a visual representation of unused words in the word bank.
- In the spirit of Mad Libs, teachers can ask students to come up with three adjectives, five nouns, and an adverb ahead of time, without seeing the paragraph they will be used in. Students can then write their pre-selected words in and, after seeing the silly version, make corrections so the paragraph makes more sense.
- These activities can be used to break up a unit exploring climate change.
This lesson defines different words that are essential to know while learning about climate and climate change. Students will also learn about the importance of having a common definition for words. This lesson is a great lesson to include while the topics of climate and climate change are being introduced to students. The information presented is accurate, and this resource is recommended for teaching.
Teaching Tips
Standards
Resource Type and Format
Scientist Reviewed
This resource has been reviewed by SubjectToClimate's climate scientists and verified for scientific accuracy and up-to-date information. Our review process ensures that every resource in our library reflects the current state of climate science.
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