This page is intended as a supplement to one of a set of hands-on learning tools, for use alongside the tools. For more information about these learning tools, see this page
This hands-on puzzle gives a hint about one of the three root causes of all environmental problems (and its positive opposite).
Quick links
Hints / make it easier
This three-dimensional puzzle comes together to make a word, two pictures and a poem.
Match the letter to the picture, i.e. N is for for Newt (the letter N is already matched to its picture as an example).
Stack the blocks to make a word.
To help you work out which letter matches which picture, there is a hint on the back of each picture block – the word that matches the picture is highlighted in the poem with capital letters.
For instance
Word Puzzle
What is the last letter of the word?
What is the first letter of the word?
What is the picture that matches the first letter?
What is the word?
What is the word and all the matching pictures?
Picture puzzles
Instead of putting together the word, you can put this together as two picture puzzles.
Click here to see the two different pictures that come together on the narrow side when the blocks are stacked:
This shows a tree and photosynthesis
The tree ‘breathes’ in carbon dioxide and ‘breathes’ out oxygen. We breathe in oxygen and breathe out carbon dioxide – this is a cycle.
There is nothing wrong with carbon, or carbon dioxide in and of themselves, the problem is when we put too much, too fast, into nature – it causes a problem.
This shows a peat bog
A deep layer of soil created from an accumulation of sphagnum moss over thousands of years, which is compressed into peat.
As the moss grows, it takes carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere and this carbon is then stored in the thick layer of peat. When we dig up the peat bogs, for example to use the peat for compost in the garden, this ancient store of carbon is released back into the atmosphere.
Challenges / make it harder
Poem puzzle
Can you put together the poem as a puzzle? Look for the rhyming couplets on the small blocks and match the ends of the phrases to their beginnings on the larger blocks.
Chemical structures (on the letter blocks)
Click for more information
C: This shows the amorphous structure of carbon in coal – fossilised dead plants.
A: This chemical symbol is carbon dioxide (CO2) ,the most significant human-produced greenhouse gas that is causing global heating.
R: This image shows the crystalline structure of carbon in a diamond.
B: This chemical symbol is methane (CH4). Bogs and wetlands store huge amounts of methane, which is released when they are drained. Each molecule of methane in the atmosphere causes 25 times more global warming than a molecule of carbon dioxide.
O: This chemical symbol is calcium carbonate (CaCO₃). This is one of the major ways that carbon dioxide is stored in the ocean – in the shells of marine creatures that sink to the ocean floor, and eventually form seabed’s chalky rocks.
N: This image shows DNA, which encodes the genetic information that creates all different forms of life on earth. There is carbon in the sugars that form part of the chemical sequencing of DNA.
For young children
Completing the word puzzle as a phonics lesson
Click for more information
Stack the larger blocks (the ones with pictures instead of the letter blocks) to make a picture of a tree on the narrow side of the blocks.
- The bottom block shows the letter matching the picture block (N for Newt and O for ocean).
Now try to match the other letters to pictures. Below are some hints/questions you can ask to tease the letters out.
- The second letter from the bottom is Ofor Ocean
- You can ask questions to help tease out what the picture is showing:
- If the following words are suggested, you can ask:
- Sea (what are other words for the sea?), or
- Boat (what does a boat float on?), or
- Whale (where does a whale swim?).
- The next letter in the stack is B for Bog
- You can ask what sort of ground is wet and soggy?
- What word for wet ground rhymes with soggy?
- R is for Ring. You can ask what type of ring it is (answer – diamond, which is made of CARBON).
- Often the image for A (sands for Air) is confused with B for balloon – you can ask:
- What does the balloon fly in?
- What kind of balloon is it?
- For C for Coal (the first letter and top of the stack)
- You may need to ask what is being burned (hint: it is like hard black stones).
- If the answer comes as charcoal, you can ask
- What are other kinds of fuel that are similar to charcoal, but that are buried in the ground and have to be dug up, or mined?
- What kind of fuel was used in the Industrial Revolution?
What is the root cause (and its positive opposite)?
One of the three root causes of environmental problems (doing the opposite) (What we are doing wrong)
Click here for the answer
One of the ways we can cause environmental problems in a system of cycles, where materials like carbon, nitrogen and oxygen flow around in balance, is to OVERWHELM natural cycles with perfectly ‘natural’ stuff.
What types of things are these?
Carbon (and in particular carbon dioxide) is a major example of this. It is a building block of life, there is nothing wrong with it itself – without carbon there would be no life. But when we produce carbon dioxide too much, too fast, it builds up in the atmosphere, and ends up causing problems – in particular, climate change.
Another example of a building block of life is nitrogen. But too much nitrogen in water causes nutrient overload (eutrophication). Algae grows very quickly due to too many nutrients, then dies, and oxygen is lost as the algae decomposes. This causes fish to die.
Sulphur is also a building block of life – and too much sulphur, such as sulphur dioxide from burning coal, causes acid rain – and forests and lakes to die.
Instead of overwhelming (with too much, too fast), we need to BALANCE our flows of natural materials. This means we need to make sure that nutrients return to the soil and don’t end up polluting lakes, rivers and the sea. We need to drastically reduce our use of fossil fuels – aiming for net-zero carbon emissions – and instead live off solar income – the free energy that the sun gives us. (This includes wind energy, which comes from air moving between hot and cold areas.).
Ideas for action
In the home or garden
Every time we turn off the lights, or turn down the thermostat, we save energy. This means that we need to burn less fossil fuel to heat and light our homes – reducing climate change.
We can install insulation, and heat pumps, that use a small amount of electricity to heat our homes. (Note that we need to take a round view – and when purchasing a heat pump also think about whether they may be any ‘poisons’ to nature – stuff that doesn’t break down into the building blocks of life. What is the coolant used in the heat pump? There are heat pumps on the market that don’t use freon (a human-made chemical and a potent greenhouse gas when it gets into the atmosphere).
We can swap to renewable sources, such as solar and wind, to meet our energy needs. Can you install solar panels on your roof? Can you swap energy providers to a company that produces renewable energy instead of using fossil fuels?
Instead of driving, can you cycle or walk, or use public transport?
Do you know where your washing machine water goes? There are a lot of nutrients in there that cause problems for rivers if they are plumbed wrong and the waste water doesn’t go to the sewer treatment plants.
Inspiring ideas / bigger picture changes
Redesign buildings to heat and cool themselves
We can use natural materials to provide insulation (wood fibre, straw panels, wool, hemp-crete, etc), so that our houses stay warm in the winter. We can think about how to orientate our houses so we capture as much sunlight as possible in the winter, and shade houses in the summer. We can learn from nature and design houses that use natural ventilation, like a termite mound for cooling in the summer.
Design for active transport
We can design our neighbourhoods and cities to make it safe, quick and easy to move around by bike and walking.https://www.sustrans.org.uk/
Large-scale renewable energy
Did you know that putting solar panels on just half of the world’s roofs would provide us with all of our electricity needs?https://theconversation.com/solar-panels-on-half-the-worlds-roofs-could-meet-its-entire-electricity-demand-new-research-169302#
We need to massively scale up our use of renewable energy – and at the same time, take a round view and think about how to minimise the impact on biodiversity!
Learning resources in different languages
Different languages
We are working on translations of all of the materials into different languages. Below are the languages that are coming soon.
- Arabic
- French / Francais
- Mandarin
- Scottish Gaelic
- Shona (Zimbabwe)
- Spanish / Espangnol
- Urdu