---
title: "When the climate hits home"
course: "ENVR 200 · Climate change, explained"
unit: "Impacts and choices"
lesson: 11 of 19
source: https://open.maestrocollege.edu/climate-change-explained/when-the-climate-hits-home
publisher: Maestro College
---

# When the climate hits home

Lesson 11 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 current observed climate impacts on human communities across the social and economic dimensions - health, food, water, displacement, livelihoods - using specific recent examples.
- Map one specific recent climate event onto the human dimensions it touches.
- Understand what event-attribution science can and cannot legitimately say about whether climate change influenced a specific heatwave, storm, or flood.
- Understand why the impacts of the same climate hazard can differ across communities by considering exposure and vulnerability.

## Teaching notes
Focus on human communities; the biosphere side is handled in u2l1. Frame attribution as 'how do we know this particular event is connected to the trend?' - signal vs. noise (u1l3) applied to one event.

## 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 11 complete: When the climate hits home."
2. Give a two-line recap of what they learned.
3. Name the next lesson, "Possible climate futures" (lesson 12 of 19), and give the learner its link: https://open.maestrocollege.edu/climate-change-explained/possible-climate-futures.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: A living world under change
Next lesson: Possible climate futures