“Okay class, let’s discuss the geological formation at Minnehaha Falls.” This is how I would begin a typical lesson in my environmental science course at the University of Minnesota. The students and I would walk down the winding stairs to reach the waterfall. I would point out the different species of plants and have the students keep an eye out for signs of wildlife. We would discuss the concepts of ecotones and erosion. If we were lucky, we’d be able to see bald eagles or a family of hawks soaring over us. After reaching the Mississippi river, we would conclude with a biodiversity survey to understand the health of a habitat and ecosystem.
However, as I continued to teach this course, I wanted to make it more meaningful to students. I had to take a step back and practice backwards design, keeping in mind the purpose and goal of this course, beyond the standard curriculum. Ultimately, I wanted my students to be knowledgeable stewards of the land they occupy, both locally and globally. We are experiencing a climate crisis that impacts everyone, everywhere. I’ve updated my course to include a portion where students take one result of climate change and explore the impacts it has on the environment and the wellbeing of all (plants, animals, humans) that occupy it. For example, students may read about how climate change leads to a worldwide increase in temperatures, but this may not feel relevant to them. But when they connect increased temperatures to a decrease in pollinators, they understand how it is detrimental for agriculture and farming. Or how increased temperatures are proportionately connected to occurrences of natural disasters (droughts in some areas and floods in others). Or how increased temperatures can lead to an increase in human infections and diseases. Once we can see the connection and relevance, our understanding and views must change.
This course now culminates in a capstone project where students pick a park within the Twin Cities that they want to learn more about. They identify issues the park faces and propose socially responsible and culturally sensitive management practices to help conserve biodiversity for future generations. I fondly refer to their capstone project as “lessons not taught but discovered.” I can’t teach students to care about the environment; it is something that they must discover through being there physically, observing and identifying issues their park faces, and critically coming up with solutions to rectify these issues. I can tell that students really enjoy completing this project: they work hard to come up with potential solutions to keep their park sustainable for future generations and even make beautiful videos about the parks. It’s a great feeling when the teacher-student role reverses and I learn so much more about the parks and the unique talents that my students bring to the class. This brings to mind a quote by Steve Irwin: “If we can teach people about wildlife, they will be touched… Because humans want to save things that they love.”
Cuc is a Climate Generation Window Into COP delegate for COP29. To learn more, we encourage you to meet the full delegation, support our delegates, and subscribe to the Window Into COP digest.
Cuc (pronounced “Cook”) Vu is a graduate student in the STEM Education program at the University of Minnesota. Her research interest involves examining the phenomena behind inequities in representation of marginalized populations in STEM disciplines. Her favorite class to teach is “Nature in the Cities”, an environmental science course that focuses on science and conservation of biodiversity in the Twin Cities. This course covers the importance of socially responsible and culturally sensitive interventions to environmental problems.
The post Lessons not taught appeared first on Climate Generation.
Climate Change
Analysis: Constituency of Reform’s climate-sceptic Richard Tice gets £55m flood funding
The Lincolnshire constituency held by Richard Tice, the climate-sceptic deputy leader of the hard-right Reform party, has been pledged at least £55m in government funding for flood defences since 2024.
This investment in Boston and Skegness is the second-largest sum for a single constituency from a £1.4bn flood-defence fund for England, Carbon Brief analysis shows.
Flooding is becoming more likely and more extreme in the UK due to climate change.
Yet, for years, governments have failed to spend enough on flood defences to protect people, properties and infrastructure.
The £1.4bn fund is part of the current Labour government’s wider pledge to invest a “record” £7.9bn over a decade on protecting hundreds of thousands of homes and businesses from flooding.
As MP for one of England’s most flood-prone regions, Tice has called for more investment in flood defences, stating that “we cannot afford to ‘surrender the fens’ to the sea”.
He is also one of Reform’s most vocal opponents of climate action and what he calls “net stupid zero”. He denies the scientific consensus on climate change and has claimed, falsely and without evidence, that scientists are “lying”.
Flood defences
Last year, the government said it would invest £2.65bn on flood and coastal erosion risk management (FCERM) schemes in England between April 2024 and March 2026.
This money was intended to protect 66,500 properties from flooding. It is part of a decade-long Labour government plan to spend more than £7.9bn on flood defences.
There has been a consistent shortfall in maintaining England’s flood defences, with the Environment Agency expecting to protect fewer properties by 2027 than it had initially planned.
The Climate Change Committee (CCC) has attributed this to rising costs, backlogs from previous governments and a lack of capacity. It also points to the strain from “more frequent and severe” weather events, such as storms in recent years that have been amplified by climate change.
However, the CCC also said last year that, if the 2024-26 spending programme is delivered, it would be “slightly closer to the track” of the Environment Agency targets out to 2027.
The government has released constituency-level data on which schemes in England it plans to fund, covering £1.4bn of the 2024-26 investment. The other half of the FCERM spending covers additional measures, from repairing existing defences to advising local authorities.
The map below shows the distribution of spending on FCERM schemes in England over the past two years, highlighting the constituency of Richard Tice.
By far the largest sum of money – £85.6m in total – has been committed to a tidal barrier and various other defences in the Somerset constituency of Bridgwater, the seat of Conservative MP Ashley Fox.
Over the first months of 2026, the south-west region has faced significant flooding and Fox has called for more support from the government, citing “climate patterns shifting and rainfall intensifying”.
He has also backed his party’s position that “the 2050 net-zero target is impossible” and called for more fossil-fuel extraction in the North Sea.
Tice’s east-coast constituency of Boston and Skegness, which is highly vulnerable to flooding from both rivers and the sea, is set to receive £55m. Among the supported projects are beach defences from Saltfleet to Gibraltar Point and upgrades to pumping stations.
Overall, Boston and Skegness has the second-largest portion of flood-defence funding, as the chart below shows. Constituencies with Conservative and Liberal Democrat MPs occupied the other top positions.
Overall, despite Labour MPs occupying 347 out of England’s 543 constituencies – nearly two-thirds of the total – more than half of the flood-defence funding was distributed to constituencies with non-Labour MPs. This reflects the flood risk in coastal and rural areas that are not traditional Labour strongholds.
Reform funding
While Reform has just eight MPs, representing 1% of the population, its constituencies have been assigned 4% of the flood-defence funding for England.
Nearly all of this money was for Tice’s constituency, although party leader Nigel Farage’s coastal Clacton seat in Kent received £2m.
Reform UK is committed to “scrapping net-zero” and its leadership has expressed firmly climate-sceptic views.
Much has been made of the disconnect between the party’s climate policies and the threat climate change poses to its voters. Various analyses have shown the flood risk in Reform-dominated areas, particularly Lincolnshire.
Tice has rejected climate science, advocated for fossil-fuel production and criticised Environment Agency flood-defence activities. Yet, he has also called for more investment in flood defences, stating that “we cannot afford to ‘surrender the fens’ to the sea”.
This may reflect Tice’s broader approach to climate change. In a 2024 interview with LBC, he said:
“Where you’ve got concerns about sea level defences and sea level rise, guess what? A bit of steel, a bit of cement, some aggregate…and you build some concrete sea level defences. That’s how you deal with rising sea levels.”
While climate adaptation is viewed as vital in a warming world, there are limits on how much societies can adapt and adaptation costs will continue to increase as emissions rise.
The post Analysis: Constituency of Reform’s climate-sceptic Richard Tice gets £55m flood funding appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Analysis: Constituency of Reform’s climate-sceptic Richard Tice gets £55m flood funding
Proposed Endangered Species Act rollbacks and military expansions are leaving the Pacific’s most diverse coral reefs legally defenseless.
Ritidian Point, at the northern tip of Guam, is home to an ancient limestone forest with panoramic vistas of warm Pacific waters. Stand here in early spring and you might just be lucky enough to witness a breaching humpback whale as they migrate past. But listen and you’ll be struck by the cacophony of the island’s live-fire testing range.
US Government Is Accelerating Coral Reef Collapse, Scientists Warn
Ice loss in the Antarctic Ocean may be killing the sea birds during their molting season.
Each year for millennia, emperor penguins have molted on coastal sea ice that remained stable until late summer—a haven during a span of several weeks when it’s dangerous for the mostly aquatic birds to enter the ocean to feed because they are regrowing their waterproof feathers.
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