Year 10 Science · Unit 4 · Lesson 6

Mitigation Strategies and Renewable Energy

Foundation Worksheet

Name

Date

Class

Learning Goals

Define mitigation and explain how it differs from adaptation.
Name the main renewable energy technologies and identify which low-carbon source is not renewable.
State the main limitation of solar and wind power and name two storage solutions.

Warm Up

Fill the gap

Choose the correct word from the word bank to complete each sentence. Use each word once. Two words will not be used.

mitigation adaptation solar wind nuclear intermittency pumped hydro geothermal blue carbon

1. Reducing greenhouse gas emissions, for example by switching from coal to renewables, is called .

2. Building a sea wall or developing drought-resistant crops to cope with changes that are already locked in is called .

3. Australia is the world leader per capita in rooftop PV, which converts sunlight directly into electricity.

4. energy uses uranium, a finite mined resource, so it is described as low-carbon but not renewable.

5. The variable output of solar and wind, which do not generate continuously, is called .

6. stores energy by pumping water uphill when power is cheap and releasing it through turbines when power is needed; it is the largest form of grid-scale storage globally.

7. Carbon stored in coastal ecosystems such as seagrass meadows and mangroves is known as .

Your Turn

Sort it!

Write each item from the pool into the correct column of the table below.

Switching power stations from coal to wind farms Raising road levels to cope with worse flooding Snowy 2.0 pumped hydro scheme (~2,000 MW) Breeding drought-resistant wheat varieties Hornsdale Power Reserve lithium-ion battery Planting and protecting mangrove forests Building sea walls to protect a coastal town Installing rooftop solar panels on homes

Mitigation

Adaptation

Energy storage

Show What You Know

1. In your own words, what is the difference between mitigation and adaptation? Give one example of each.

Recall 2 marks

2. Name three renewable energy technologies. For one of them, state its main limitation.

Recall 2 marks

3. Why is nuclear energy described as "low-carbon" but not "renewable"?

Recall 1 mark

Wrap Up

In one sentence, what was the main idea of this lesson?

Answer Key

Teacher use, Fill the gap

1. mitigation 2. adaptation 3. solar 4. nuclear 5. intermittency 6. pumped hydro 7. blue carbon. (Unused words: wind, geothermal.)

Teacher use, Sort it

Mitigation: Switching power stations from coal to wind farms; Planting and protecting mangrove forests; Installing rooftop solar panels on homes.
Adaptation: Raising road levels to cope with worse flooding; Breeding drought-resistant wheat varieties; Building sea walls to protect a coastal town.
Energy storage: Snowy 2.0 pumped hydro scheme; Hornsdale Power Reserve lithium-ion battery.

Teacher use, Show What You Know

1. Mitigation reduces the causes of climate change by cutting greenhouse gas emissions or enhancing carbon sinks (e.g. switching to renewables). Adaptation adjusts to changes already locked in to reduce harm (e.g. building a sea wall). Accept any valid example of each.
2. Any three of: solar PV, wind, hydroelectricity, geothermal. Limitations (one needed): solar and wind are intermittent (no output at night / variable with wind); hydro needs suitable terrain and water and is hit by drought; geothermal has high drilling costs.
3. Nuclear has near-zero operational emissions, so it is low-carbon, but it runs on uranium, a finite mined resource that is not naturally replenished on human timescales, so it is not renewable.