Problem Statement Template
We would ideally like this filled out in groups
Please consider filling this out with your students if you can.
1. School name:
2. Facilitator names:
3. Pupil names:
4. Summary of your broad problem in one or two sentences:
e.g.
‘We are highly likely to experience flooding in the next decade.’
‘our school is in an area experiencing extreme weather’
‘there is a lot of air pollution in the area our school is based in’
5. Now give some various ways in which this problem affects your school
students and neighbourhood:
e.g.
‘This will affect our routes to school and the safety of our houses.’
‘This is going to cost our school a lot of money in the future’
6. If you can, insert up to three photos are sketches below which help others
visualise the problem. If you are stuck for ideas for photos and sketches,
ask yourself these questions:
Who has the problem?
Where and when does the problem happen?
Why does the problem happen?
How does it affect people?
How do people deal with it?
INSERT ANY PHOTOS OR SKETCHES BELOW:
An explanation of…
Adaptation
Adaptation involves adjusting for
impacts of climate change, such as
7. Is this an adaptation- or a mitigation-related extreme weather, bushfires or
problem? (please underline) crop failures. Some already
experienced, and some in the
Adaptation future.
Mitigation Mitigation
8. Please provide a short justification as to why Mitigation concerns reducing your
you have chosen this 'big problem’. You could school or community’s carbon
focus on whether or not this problem is being emissions which accelerate global
addressed already. Are the impacts of concern warming.
to people? Carbon emissions
Carbon dioxide is emitted by such
processes as the burning of fossil
fuels (for example by driving a car)
or excessive use of energy (for
example heating or cooling).
9. (Optional) You may think it useful to provide a
map of the relevant area in the neighbourhood
or school so that other students can better understand the problem (you
may wish to use Google Maps at https://www.google.co.uk/maps):
10.Have a look back at what broad problem you wrote for question 4. Please
provide some starting points for solutions, to help with the activities in the
summit. The more specific, elaborated problems in question 5 may also be
useful to consider here. (At a later stage, the steering group will aim to
provide further materials as well.)
Here should be your initial thoughts on what a potential solution could practically
involve. For example, “Keep in mind there is no safe cycle route to school.” A
solution to a problem statement should be collective in nature. In other words, it
must be something that is tackled as a group.
11. (Optional - Scottish schools only) Finally, please provide links to any research materials
which other schools in your team may need in order to delve deeper into the issues
involved in this problem. Consider that these should be printable and mailable to any
schools without sufficient broadband to access them otherwise.
Consider the following points if you are not what materials would be useful:
Are there any notable figures who have written about this problem?
Is there anyone who has attempted to solve a similar issue elsewhere?
