Stepping Through Climate Science

PINEMAP Project, University of Florida, Project Learning Tree

In this short activity, students create a timeline of climate science over the past 200 years and gather information from a U.S. Forest Service video about mitigation and adaptation strategies undertaken by the Service to address climate change in national forests.

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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.

Be sure to watch the "Tour the Activity" video before you begin. View the Teacher Comments at the bottom of the Activity 1 home page [link http://sfrc.ufl.edu/extension/ee/climate/section1/activity1/].
This activity uses a systems approach in providing an overview of the connections between forests and climate. Produced by Climate Learning Tree/University of Florida with materials from the US Forest Service. Comments from expert scientist: Scientific strengths: - great introductory lesson on climate change and forests for more science-specific activities - the science bolded words are excellent vocabulary words! - timeline stepping / graphing is a great tool Suggestions: - CO2 concentrations should be updated to reflect current years (the resource lists data from 2013) CO2 is up to 410 ppm! http://www.climatecentral.org/news/we-just-breached-the-410-parts-per-million-threshold-21372
Alternate assessment strategies are supplied for teachers. On the home page, [link http://sfrc.ufl.edu/extension/ee/climate/section1/activity1/] there are three important teacher tools: A video "Tour of the Activity" that lays out objectives and tells instructors exactly what students will be doing and identifies videos or other media that teachers should review, a Check Your Knowledge--Interactive Quiz for educators, and Systems Exercises that can be incorporated. Students assemble a timeline - including both scientific events and policy events - of the history of climate change science, and preview a video on the US Forest Service response to climate change. "Systems Reflections" after each section of the lab tie student results to systems thinking and analysis.