Studying and restoring Canada’s peatlands and their carbon storage superpower

Suitable for 14-19-year olds (secondary and high schools, and college), this article and accompanying activity sheet can be used in the classroom, STEM clubs and at home.

This resource links to KS4 and KS5/Grade 9-10 and Grade 11-12 Geography and Biology.

It can also be used as a careers resource and links to Gatsby Benchmarks (UK):
Gatsby Benchmark 2: Learning from career and labour market information
Gatsby Benchmark 4: Linking curriculum learning to careers

• This teaching resource explains the work of Professor Maria Strack from the University of Waterloo in Canada. She is investigating how the disturbance and restoration of peatlands affects their ability to store carbon.

• This resource also contains an interview with Maria, and offers an insight into careers in physical geography. If your students have questions for Maria, they can send them through the Futurum Careers website.

• The activity sheet provides ‘talking points’ (based on Bloom’s Taxonomy) to prompt students to reflect on Maria’s research and challenges them to investigate how different types of peatland disturbance influence climate change.

The article and activity sheet are also available in French from the Futurum website.

This resource was first published by Futurum Careers, a free online resource and magazine aimed at encouraging 14-19-year-olds worldwide to pursue careers in science, tech, engineering, maths, medicine (STEM) and social sciences, humanities and the arts for people and the economy (SHAPE).

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