What if we could control the weather?
Lesson plan overview
This ESL worksheet explores the topic of weather control and extreme weather, targeting upper-intermediate to advanced learners. It includes vocabulary building focused on common weather-related terms and expressions, comprehension exercises based on a video about future weather control technologies, and engaging speaking activities that encourage reflection on the ethical and practical implications of manipulating the weather. Other lessons you might like are: “Heatwaves“, “Keeping a hot city cool“, “Phrasal verbs: the weather“, and “Phrasal verbs: natural disasters“.
Speaking: The lesson begins with open-ended questions about personal experiences with weather.
Vocabulary: Students learn key types of extreme weather (e.g., heatwave, drought, hailstorm, sandstorm) and discuss the impacts of each one. Then they look at different impacts and say which type of extreme weather might produce them. Next, students work on weather collocation (e.g., release precipitation, volcano erupts, temperature drops).
Listening: Learners watch a video titled “How we’ll control the weather in 100 years” and complete comprehension tasks that focus on technological methods like cloud seeding and stratospheric aerosol injection, as well as their possible consequences.
Critical Thinking & Reflection: The worksheet encourages learners to rank stakeholder groups by their need for weather control, analyze the risks versus rewards, and reflect on ethical questions related to human intervention in nature.
Vocabulary review: The worksheet ends with a vocabulary review task, encouraging students to create sentences with key terms from the lesson.
This resource is ideal for students who want to enhance their English skills in environmental and scientific contexts while engaging in thoughtful discussions about future technologies and their global impact.
Unlock these resources with one of our subscription plans
Teacher’s lesson plan
Student’s worksheet
Student’s interactive PDF
Conversation cards PDF
Pre-class activities
All video-based ESL lesson plans include online pre-class activities, which are FREE and can be completed without registration. Perfect for teachers who wish to embrace the blended learning approach. By providing students with resources and engagement opportunities before the actual class session, educators can foster active participation, enhance comprehension, and optimise in-class discussions.
The pre-class activities are optional: if you choose not to assign them, or your students don’t complete them, it will not disturb the flow of the class. You can find and review the pre-class activities for this lesson plan here:
To send the pre-class activities to your students, copy the link below.
In-class activities
To download the PDF files for this lesson, you need to have an active Premium or Premium + subscription.
Browse FREE lesson plans here.
Additional resources
Each video-based lesson plan includes links to additional resources (videos and articles), which are FREE can be found online (in the pre-class activities page. These links aim to extend the learning experience, enabling students to connect classroom knowledge with real-world applications.
Unlock these resources with one of our subscription plans
Teacher’s lesson plan
Student’s worksheet
Student’s interactive PDF
Conversation cards PDF
Not sure yet?
Try one of our FREE lessons plans
Share this lesson plan with someone who will find it useful