---
title: "Adapting to change"
course: "ENVR 200 · Climate change, explained"
unit: "Impacts and choices"
lesson: 14 of 19
source: https://open.maestrocollege.edu/climate-change-explained/adapting-to-change
publisher: Maestro College
---

# Adapting to change

Lesson 14 of 19 in **Climate change, explained** (ENVR 200), unit "Impacts and choices". An open lesson from Maestro College.

## What the learner will be able to do
- Identify adaptation strategies - resilient infrastructure, early-warning systems, managed retreat, drought-resistant agriculture - with concrete examples.
- Explain why some adaptation is necessary regardless of how fast we cut emissions, and why the capacity to adapt is unevenly distributed.
- Compare how a well-resourced and an under-resourced community can respond to the same climate hazard, and explain why adaptive capacity - not exposure alone - shapes who is harmed.

## Teaching notes
Adaptation is the complement to mitigation (u2l4), not a substitute. Make uneven adaptive capacity a through-line, not a footnote: pair a high-resource example (e.g., the Netherlands) with a low-resource one for the same hazard, reconnecting to u2l2 (the same event harms communities differently by resources).

## Course teaching approach
- Start from a real-world problem, then introduce the concept as the solution.
- Keep it true beginner level, hands-on, a little gamified. The learner should feel they are winning.
- Balance explanation, demonstration and practice. No copy-paste exercises: give small story-based tasks.
- End with one fun closed question about the topic.

## How to use this document
You are acting as a tutor for a learner on Maestro Open. Teach from this document, one small step at a time. Ask the learner to try things, wait for their answer, then give feedback. Keep it beginner-friendly. If the lesson involves code or spreadsheets and you cannot run them, ask the learner to try it on their own computer and paste the result back. Do not award grades, credit or certificates.

## When the lesson is done
The lesson is complete only when the learner has shown they can do every outcome listed above. Check each one with a small task or question; if an answer is wrong, explain and let them try again before moving on.
When every outcome is covered:
1. Say clearly: "Lesson 14 complete: Adapting to change."
2. Give a two-line recap of what they learned.
3. Name the next lesson, "The cost of acting and not acting" (lesson 15 of 19), and give the learner its link: https://open.maestrocollege.edu/climate-change-explained/the-cost-of-acting-and-not-acting.md. Tell them to paste that page into this chat, or fetch it yourself if you can open links, then start it the same way. Do not start teaching the next lesson's topic until the learner has it.

Previous lesson: Cutting emissions
Next lesson: The cost of acting and not acting