Rethinking Energy: A Climate Resilience Workshop

What To Do

Please refer to the Manual for the full instructions (in-person and virtual) for this workshop. Brief in-person instructions are provided below.

Pre-Activity Prep 

• If you are delivering this activity in-person, consider printing and cutting out the Consequences and Adaptation Index Cards for Activity #1c for students to do as a class. You can resort and group the index cards after the activity using the indicators for each title.  
  • Alternatively, you can project the Google Form to complete together as a class or in small groups. 
• For Activity #2c, prepare policy change criteria in advance for students to complete their Compensatory Decision-Making Worksheet. Example criteria are provided in this guide under instructions for Activity 2. 
• For more information on how to adapt this workshop for different age groups and prior knowledge of oil infrastructure and climate change, see more details in the section below. 

Introduction 

Background information on greenhouse gases and climate change 

Ensure participants understand what climate change is and what the cause is: 

• Show Slide 2 on PowerPoint and follow the prompts. 
   

Background information on oil infrastructure 

• Show Slide 3 on PowerPoint. 

You can do the following if the educator or the youth would like to complete the backgrounder during the workshop instead: 

1. For the oil infrastructure introduction, split youth into 3 groups and assign them to either oil sands, offshore facilities or shale resources.  

1. Each group has 5 minutes to read their respective backgrounder from the Oil Facilities Backgrounder provided. Youth can use Worksheet #1 - Introduction to summarize their findings. 

1. After 5 minutes, each group has 1 minute to explain their respective oil reserves to the full group.  

1. Show Slide 4-6 on PowerPoint with the 1-minute timer for the oil sands group presentation. Use the Pear Deck add-in if youth would like to write their answer down instead. 
    

Activity 1 – Climate Change & Oil Infrastructure 

• Show Slide 7 on PowerPoint. 

Introduce the next activity to the group, explaining that we are going to explore a fictional case study about Let’s Talk Science Island and the effects that climate change will have on their oil infrastructure.  

1. If the introduction was completed, keep youth in the same groups from the introduction. If not, split youth into 3 groups.  

1. Ask youth to read the Oil Infrastructure and Critical Services Task Card provided or show Slide 8 on PowerPoint with instructions from Worksheet #1 – Activity #1a. 

1. Give youth 5-10 minutes to complete the chart with the connections of different critical services to the oil industry in Worksheet #1 – Activity #1a. Ask youth to consider how vulnerable each critical service will be based on the effects of climate change and to include their reasoning. 

1. Give youth 5-10 minutes to read the description of the oil infrastructure at each site in the Oil Facilities Information Sheet and focus on the change in climate parameters (e.g. temperature, precipitation and sea level rise) that are expected to occur in the region by 2050. They can use Worksheet #1 – Activity #1b to summarize what is predicted to happen for each oil facility based on the maps shown. 

1. There are several other climate parameters that the maps do not cover. Give youth 5-10 minutes to match the climate parameters shown in Table 1 of Worksheet #1 – Activity #1c with the effect on the respective oil infrastructure and potential solutions. Use the final table in Worksheet #1c to organize your expected problems and solutions for each oil facility. 
    

Activity 2 – Stakeholders in Oil & Climate Change Policy 

• Show Slide 12 on PowerPoint. 

1. Break the youth into 3 groups of up to 10 youth each– each group is responsible for one section of oil infrastructure on Let’s Talk Science Island.  
2. In their groups, assign 1-2 people to represent a different stakeholder. 

1. Ask the youth in each group to read the Oil Stakeholder Viewpoints Information Sheet with the article representing the viewpoint of their stakeholder. 

1. Tell the youth that the task of each group is to consider at most 4 different issues with regards to oil infrastructure for their oil reserve.  

1. Once each group completes Tables 1 and 2 in Worksheet #2 – Activity #2a to the best of their ability, ask youth to use their answers in Tables 1 and 2 to consider at most 4 different structural or policy changes for their respective oil facility that represent their stakeholder’s interests. They can place their answers around the 4 circles found on the Consensus Mat in Worksheet #2 – Activity #2b. They can keep the middle circle empty for now. 

1. Explain the Compensatory Decision-Making Process to the youth to complete Worksheet #2 – Activity #2c. 
    

Wrap-Up 

Climate Action Question or Prompt  

For groups that completed Activity 1: 

• Show Slide 13 on PowerPoint, follow the discussion prompts. For virtual: Use the Pear Deck add-in. 

For groups that completed Activity 2: 

• Show Slide 14-17 on PowerPoint, follow the discussion prompts. For virtual: Use the Pear Deck add-in.