Sketching Climate Change

Using the image from the last page, we can see that the glacier retreated between 2000 and 2015, this means it got smaller. The glacier melted and pieces of it broke off (called calving). Although some of this melting and calving is natural, the difference is so extreme because of climate change.

Dr. King loves being an artist in her spare time and often sketches her surroundings like the images below that she sketched while researching in Greenland.

But what would these areas have looked like 100 years ago? Or 100 years from now? Or even 1000 years from now? We may never know, but we can imagine it. So let’s think about how  our own environments may change.

1. Take a piece of paper and draw a line down the center.
2. Title one side “Present” and one side “Future.”
3. Choose a place you know well. It could be your home, school, local park, yearly vacation spot, etc. Draw what it looks like now on the present side. Try to add as much detail as possible.
4. Pick a time in the future that is between 100 and 1000 years from now, now sketch what that place might look like in the future.
   1. Think about climate change, natural disasters, buildings that may be built or knocked down, changes in animal or plant species, etc.
5. Talk to other people and compare drawings. Discuss why your future picture looks the same or different from the present picture.