Climate Change library
Climate Change resources for teaching, presentations, and displays
WSU Extension Master Gardener Program volunteers teach sustainable techniques for growing local food to improve individual & community health and wellness.
WSU/EMG Approved Presentations
Reimagining Your Lawn
Synopsis: Presentation for homeowners who are considering removing their lawn. Covers the historical basis for lawns, why they can be damaging to the climate and expensive to maintain, then surveys potential lawn alternatives.
Approximate run time: One hour
The Resilient Yard
Battling Climate Change at Home
Synopsis: Presentation for homeowners who want to know what simple steps they can take in designing and maintaining their yard to battle climate change. The presentation is broken down into sections on climate change, lawn maintenance, garden bed design & growing veggies.
Approximate run time: One hour
Protect our Pollinators
from the Effects of Climate Change
Synopsis: Presentation for homeowners to help them understand the importance of adding pollinator plants to their garden beds and the positive effect this has for native pollinator species.
Designed as both a stand-alone presentation and one that could also be a follow-on to “The Resilient Yard” above for either a longer presentation or a return engagement.
Approximate run time: One hour
Vegetable Gardening with EASE
Synopsis: One-hour presentation covers why it helps the climate if you have a home kitchen garden and then walks through climate-friendly ways to undertake vegetable gardening
More Trees, Please
Synopsis: One-hour presentation covers the need to re-forest urban and suburban areas in order to increase tree canopy and cool cities. Review of several successful projects creating mini forests in urban areas.
Climate Ready Plants
Synopsis: One hour presentation that covers native plants vs. cultivars and ‘nativars’ and how they handle our changing climate. Includes a list of ‘Climate Ready Plants’ from a University of Washington study.
Tools to Create WSU/EMG Approved Presentations
Climate Change presentation template
Download this PowerPoint template to customize your basic local climate change presentation or to submit for the WSU/EMG approval process.
How to Use the PowerPoint presentation slide decks
Watch this short video by Caitlin May, WSU Extension Pierce County Master Gardener Program Coordinator, to learn how to effectively use the Extension Master Gardener branded PowerPoint slides. The video is about 9-minutes long.
Planning & Promotional Resources
The Program Priorities Toolkit is a guide containing a wealth of information for teaching our nine program priorities, including a section on local food.
Use this sample lesson plan for tomatoes or other teaching events by customizing it to fit your needs.
Use this template to create your own lesson plan.
Zip file includes 16×20 posters for the following invasive insects (.jpeg format):
- Spotted lantern fly
- Asian longhorned beetle
- Japanese beetle
- Brown marmorated stink bug
- Northern giant hornet
- Northern giant hornet vs. Western cicada killer
(University of Georgia) – please note you may download images but must attribute the work in the manner specified on the image pages (but not in any way that suggests endorsement).
Download a zip file filled with local food graphics for use on social media.
Other helpful resources
Continuing Education for Master Gardeners
Climate Change ‘Core Concepts’ Created by WSU Professor Craig Cogger, these ten short videos give a good overview of the topic from a climate science perspective.
Surveys
Climate Change logic model (.pdf)
Climate Change survey (link to Qualtrics)
Short link to survey: https://bit.ly/ClmtChgST
Climate Change survey questions for review (.pdf)
Climate Change survey QR code (.png)
Climate Change survey half-page handout (.pdf)
Evaluation tools
How to calculate knowledge learned (.pdf)
Knowledge learned fillable worksheet (.xls)
Introducing Program Evaluation Tools to Volunteers (.pdf)
Presentation Approval
Compiling Presentations from across the state. We are continually expanding our library so that you can have the best selection of the most relevant topics. We welcome presentations targeted at any of our nine Program Priorities: Clean Water; Climate Change; Local Food; Nearby Nature; Plant Biodiversity; Pollinators; Soil Health; Water Conservation; Wildfire Preparedness
Submit to receive ‘WSU EMG APPROVED’ badge. If you have a presentation on one of these topics and you want it APPROVED, the process does require a bit of work. But, it’s worth it to ensure you ‘get it right’. Follow the link below to understand all you need to know about the ‘WSU EMG APPROVED’ process.
Join CATs
(Climate Action Teams)
Do you want to become more involved? The Climate Action Team meets monthly to review progress on active projects; promote ideas for new projects; and seek project leads to move those ideas to active projects.
Throughout this site there are links to documents of various file types. Please contact our Statewide Program Leader if you require this information in a different format.