Reference Unit 4 calendar: when each block runs
| Block | A rotation | B rotation |
|---|---|---|
| Block 1 | Wed Jan 20 | Wed Jan 27 |
| Block 2 | Mon Jan 25 | Fri Jan 29 |
| Block 3 | Thu Jan 28 | Tue Feb 2 |
| Block 4 | Mon Feb 1 | Thu Feb 4 |
| Block 5 | Wed Feb 3 | Mon Feb 8 |
| Block 6 | Fri Feb 5 | Wed Feb 10 |
| Block 7 | Tue Feb 9 | Fri Feb 12 |
| Block 8 | Thu Feb 11 | Wed Feb 17 |
| Block 9 | Tue Feb 16 | Fri Feb 19 |
| Block 10 | Thu Feb 18 | Tue Feb 23 |
| Block 11 | Mon Feb 22 | Thu Feb 25 |
| Block 12 | Wed Feb 24 | Mon Mar 1 |
Your section follows one rotation, A or B. Check which one you are in and read that column.
Learning in English? Start with the key words. Unit 4 key words, with sentence starters · the same words in Tamil, Hindi, French, Korean and Japanese
A projection states what follows from a stated set of assumptions, so its worth depends on those assumptions being visible and challengeable.
Questions that get you there
- Factual What do the greenhouse effect, the carbon cycle, and an SSP scenario each describe?
- Conceptual What is the difference between a projection and a prediction, and why does a model's confidence language matter?
- Debatable For a city government, is it more honest to spend on reducing the cause or on absorbing the effect?
Unit 4 explicitly launches Thread 4: Science, policy, and the public as the unit's central thread. The audience is the same one you wrote for in Unit 2: a hypothetical Greater Chennai Corporation planning meeting. The format is harder (≤4-page policy brief, not landscape reading) and the defense is longer (4-minute pitch + 3-minute panel Q&A, vs. U2's 3 + 2). The science is also more abstract: you'll work with IPCC AR6 projections, SSP scenarios, climate-model outputs, and tipping-point feedbacks before the unit lets you write recommendations.
How we frame this content matters. Climate is heavy. The unit's posture is "this is a challenge we engage with": agency mode, not doom narrative. Students personally affected by Chennai's 2015 floods, ongoing air quality, dengue, or relatives in flood-vulnerable wards may opt out of specific adaptation challenges and into others without penalty or explanation needed. The 8 challenge cards are designed so every student can find one they can engage with from a position of agency rather than helplessness.
The summative (the Chennai Climate Brief) is the third major Brief-shaped deliverable of the year (after the U0 Source Dossier and the U2 Landscape Reading). The Policy Panel defense in Block 12 is the third defense in the year-long defense arc. The audience-awareness muscle you built in U2 carries over here, and stretches further.