Teaching Climate

This lesson covers a plethora of information on glacier dynamics, including basic glaciological concepts. Students learn through slide shows, hands-on activities, and discussion groups.

This resource includes primarily a text and animation to demonstrate the changes in prime movers of electricity generation in the United States between 1891 and 2021. The information is related back to the feasibility of certain prime movers that are used today.

In this lesson, students create a vision for the future of their community and identify what resources are most important to them as a starting point for resilience planning.

This interactive activity allows students to explore the costs (emissions) and benefits (energy production) of various energy sources Students can compare the environmental impacts of different energy sources.

Explaining mitigation vs adaptation can be tricky but this activity has clearly defined each of the terms for students. Students will gain a better understanding of mitigation and adaptation through real-life examples included in the card sorting activity.

This lesson connects scientific data to different types of visualizations. Students learn how art can help enhance science communication and enliven data. It provides opportunities for students to understand climate change using different tools.

In this activity, students will use journaling prompts to make personal connections to climate change including what they have observed, what motivates them to interact with the subject, and possible connections to resilience. They use these ideas to construct a climate story and reflect on their perspectives in small groups and as a class.

In this lesson, students think about where the energy they use on a daily basis comes from, including completing a tour of their school boiler/furnace room led by maintenance staff. Students will then confirm the knowledge by creating a flow chart map of where the energy is coming from to make different decisions in the future about energy consumption.

This resource from MIT engages students in a conversation about their unique skills and perspectives that can contribute to climate change solutions. In this discussion based activity, students will listen to a 17-minute episode from the Today I Learned: Climate podcast and reflect on the stories presented. They then work in small groups to brainstorm and discuss the intersections of their individual skills, passions, and priorities as they relate to climate change.

Students analyze and interpret Arctic albedo data to evaluate the effect of declining sea ice on the Arctic system. They connect this information to climate and finish by constructing a conceptual model that explains how declining sea ice is changing both the Arctic's albedo and Earth's climate.