Introduction to Earth's Climate

Notes from our reviewers

The CLEAN collection is hand-picked and rigorously reviewed for scientific accuracy and classroom effectiveness. Read what our review team had to say about this resource below or learn more about how CLEAN reviews teaching materials.

• Teaching Tips
  Some students may have difficulty understanding the interactive applets without educator support. Educator may want to make sure students know how to convert temperatures from Celsius to Fahrenheit (if necessary), because all temperatures in the lesson are in Celsius.
• About the Science
  Website and lessons were developed by a collaboration of international chemistry and educational organizations under the UN International Year of Chemistry resolution 2011. This lesson sets the groundwork for remaining lessons. Comments from expert scientist: The atmosphere animation is great and interactive. Text is generally written in a clear, concise fashion. The historical temperature map animation is great, although the text can be hard to read. Additional graphics would be useful in the earlier "Key Ideas". Plain text becomes bland and ineffective quickly.
• About the Pedagogy
  Lesson includes key ideas, applets, keyword definitions hot-linked in the text, and an end-of-lesson quiz, which provides good questions that require critical thinking. Lesson provides enough scientific information to explain weather and climate phenomena. Lesson doesn't include a teacher's guide or answer keys.
• Technical Details/Ease of Use
  Students can click through the lesson completely on their own, although applets would benefit from discussion with other students and educator.