Teaching about climate changes is as easy as A, B, C. Give each pupil a letter from the alphabet, tell them to choose a country beginning with their letter and to find out how it generates power, its transport policy and if air travel should be discouraged.

Research is set as homework and the pupils return, a week later, as ambassadors for their country to participate in a UN-style debate. Each country is allowed five minutes to introduce itself and to describe its present attitude to climate change and how it hopes to reduce its carbon emissions.

At the end of the presentations, the ambassadors discuss what is to be done and vote on global measures.

These can be decided by the class but should involve how best to generate power (which might include whether or not all countries should be allowed to have nuclear power stations), the West’s reliance on cars and whether air travel should be more expensive.

To introduce the topic, excerpts from Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth can help to establish a broader under-standing, as well as articles from papers and websites

Stephen Bywater teaches English at Bedford Modern School, Bedford