Teaching Climate

This two-part resource from GreenVision Energy broadly introduces students to vocabulary like renewable energy, load and demand response, carbon capture and sequestration, and environmental justice. Students will learn about the challenges of integrating renewable energy into the current energy grid system and navigating energy equity concepts caused by climate change through podcasts, worksheets, and discussion questions.

Pumping Iron is a station-based game meant to illustrate the movement of dust throughout different parts of the Earth system and the effects on the climate when iron-rich dust settles into the ocean and stimulates phytoplankton growth, which then leads to the drawdown of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere through photosynthesis. In this game, players collect nutrients that phytoplankton need to live as they follow the dust moving throughout the Earth system - the player with the most nutrients wins!

This visualization depicts the global water cycle. It includes how human water use affects where water is stored, how it moves, and how clean it is.

In this activity, students demonstrate their knowledge of connections between natural systems and the built environment in which they live.

This resource from NOAA provides a full unit on observation vs. modeling. It includes a series of 8 activities that use a virtual reality model and graphs to introduce concepts in the construction and application of scientific models. Students will use observations to create and validate models with a temperature and fisheries management case study and understand how the simplicity and assumptions of a model will effect its forecasting power.

Through the five lessons in this module, students will explore relationships between carbon dioxide, ocean pH, and aragonite saturation state. By examining these parameters using interactive graphs and models, students can predict whether ocean conditions support the growth and survival of shell-building marine life, both now and in the future.

This resource uses datasets, videos, text, and discussions to support an understanding of patterns in megafires under climate change conditions. This resource provides an excellent scientific overview of the wildfires impacting the Western United States. It includes expert interviews, data, and model creation that all involve sound science. It looks at cause and effect to consider the future of wildfires.

Through this resource from the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES), students will define, investigate, and answer questions about what caused the megadrought in the Colorado River Basin from 2000-2021. This lesson uses text, contextual videos, and datasets from NOAA and NASA to teach the concepts of megadrought and evapotranspiration.

In this activity, students analyze and interpret data on the reproduction of moss campion plants to explore how increasing temperatures could impact these specialized tundra plants.

In this lesson set, students begin unpacking the complex aspects of climate change by analyzing the global impacts of extreme weather events. After that, they narrow their focus through various national, regional, and community lenses. By examining these different levels of climate impact, students more accurately assess the relationship between severe weather events and current climate trends, as well as design potential mitigation solutions for the future of their community.