Resources for use with climate change topics

Hello,

Have you addressed topics in climate change in your instruction?  Have you found good resources to use?  Please share what you are doing!

Susan

Comments

Susan,

I have been gathering my materials to jump into this topic with my students.  One of the sources you suggested, cleanet.org has two great sets of principles that I plan to use to get the project going.  One set addresses climate and the other set addresses energy.  I am excited to get going with this project because of these resources.  Another source I found is The Siemens Environmental Portfolio, which is all about energy efficiency and environmental care.  I researched global footprint calculators so that students could find out what their Ecological Footprint is.  I hope this will interest them and motivate them to see how they personally can make changes in their daily living habits to contribute to making a positive change.  I believe this will all tie nicely into a lesson on all biomes of the world, (biomesworld.com).

Deb, thanks so much for your comment.  We will all learn from you as you use this topic with your students, so please keep us posted.  I'm glad that you have found The Climate Literacy and Energy Awareness Network to be helpful! <http://cleanet.org/index.html > 

Another website for biomes you might want to look at is the one I posted about a year ago, so it is buried down the pages

What’s It Like Where You Live?

http://www.mbgnet.net/index.html
This resource is a product of the Missouri Botanical Garden, designed for use by learners of all levels.   It provides a comprehensive investigation of the six “Biomes of the World”  (rainforest, tundra, taiga, desert, temperate, and grasslands), “Freshwater Ecosystems” (rivers/streams, ponds/lakes, wetlands), “Marine Ecosystems” (shorelines, temperate oceans, and tropical oceans), and “Plants of the World. The activities are aligned with the National Geography Standards and National Science Education Standards. Each section contains a comprehensive look at flora, fauna, and physical processes with supporting graphs, charts, photographs, maps, animations, and illustrations. 

 

As Deb already knows, there are additional resources on climate change in the LINCS Online Science Course #2, Scientific Practices in Context: Planning and Lesson Development" .  One of the activities in this online course involves "using credible online resources for science lessons", and the topic of the activity is resources in climate change.  You can take this free course by signing in at the LINCS Learning Portal at https://courses.lincs.ed.gov

 

Cheers, Susan

 

Susan, 

I submitted an OER on the Electromagnetic Spectrum to the OER Commons site.  I was looking for sources of information concerning energy.  In further exploration of this OER, I found that this was only one lesson imbedded in a Penn State course on climate change.  It is excellent and upon using it in the classroom I had excellent results.  Students who stated that they hated Science are asking when we can go back in and do more work with this OER.  It is turning into a huge class project and  what I am finding is that it is intercurricular.  We are examining both viewpoints of this topic, hence the argument support with evidence style of writing used on the GED.  It is a college level course they are learning good reading comprehension skills.  In some of the data used in the labs they use Algebra, so they can see how it is used in real life situations.  They need a good Geography background for the lesson, knowing all of the continents and oceans.  There is reference to this problem increasing with the Industrial Revolution so we are examing this part of Social Studies.  I am having them create mind maps to see all of the connections to so many topics, ecosystems, biomes, ocean acidification, etc.  It is quite exciting and the OER's have opened up a new door for my teaching style.  I am loving it.

Deb

Thanks for this information, Deb!

There is a good booklet that has been reviewed on the LINCS Resources Collection.  It is "Climate Literacy: The Essential Principles of  Climate Sciences"

http://lincs.ed.gov/professional-development/resource-collections/profile-517 or http://oceanservice.noaa.gov/education/literacy/climate_literacy.pdf