SLASL: Using Chemistry to Make Waves in Climate Change Research

Part I: Unit Title: Using Chemistry to Make Waves in Climate Change Research

Part II: Background on LMS and Science Teacher relationship: This lesson was created by Library Media Coordinator Anne Bucci, Chemistry Teacher Amy Moore, and Oceanography/Biology Teacher Tamryn O’Toole. Anne’s strengths were identified as text-based inquiry and the curation of resources.  She requested to see Amy and Tamryn’s model of what inquiry looks like in a science classroom. Amy and Tamryn’s strengths are based in science content knowledge and they requested to see Anne model how students can use text-based inquiry.

Part III: Unit Description: This unit includes 10 lessons which culminate in a student created final product presentation on the factors which influence climate change through the lens of chemistry and oceanography using literacy strategies to conduct inquiry level research.

Using inquiry-based reading, students will examine an anchor text to formulate a question to guide their research and development of student driven projects.

Throughout the unit, students will use a variety of texts, websites, and other resources to develop a product and presentation which exhibits their literacy and inquiry skills.

Using inquiry-based reading, students will explore an anchor text and then develop their own essential and supporting questions to guide their research.

Over the course of the unit, students will explore a variety of texts and grow in their knowledge of ocean acidification and in their ability to use informational text to support their inquiry and research.

Part IV: Standards:

North Carolina Chemistry Standards:

• Chm.3.2 Understand solutions and the solution process
• Chm.2.1.5 Explain the relationships among pressure, temperature, volume, and quantity of gas, both qualitative and quantitative.

North Carolina Oceanography Standards:

• M.B.3.1  Relate how the oceans are integral to all life on earth and how biogeochemical processes in the oceans influence the entire planet.
• M.B.4.1.4 Identify and describe the causes, locations and impacts of global currents.
• M.B.5.1  Analyze the interdependence of living organisms within their environment.

NGSS/State STEM Standards:

• HS-ESS2-4. Use a model to describe how variations in the flow of energy into and out of Earth’s systems result in changes in climate. [Clarification Statement: Examples of the causes of climate change differ by timescale, over 1-10 years: large volcanic eruption, ocean circulation; 10-100s of years: changes in human activity, ocean circulation, solar output; 10-100s of thousands of years: changes to Earth's orbit and the orientation of its axis; and 10-100s of millions of years: long-term changes in atmospheric composition.] [Assessment Boundary: Assessment of the results of changes in climate is limited to changes in surface temperatures, precipitation patterns, glacial ice volumes, sea levels, and biosphere distribution.
• HS-ESS3-5. Analyze geoscience data and the results from global climate models to make an evidence-based forecast of the current rate of global or regional climate change and associated future impacts to Earth systems. [Clarification Statement: Examples of evidence, for both data and climate model outputs, are for climate changes (such as precipitation and temperature) and their associated impacts (such as on sea level, glacial ice volumes, or atmosphere and ocean composition).] [Assessment Boundary: Assessment is limited to one example of a climate change and its associated impacts.]
• NGSS Crosscutting Concepts
• Cause and Effect
• Empirical evidence is required to differentiate between cause and correlation and make claims about specific causes and effects. (HS-ESS2-4)
• Stability and Change
• Change and rates of change can be quantified and modeled over very short or very long periods of time. Some system changes are irreversible. (HS-ESS3-5)

CCSS Science Literacy Standards ELA/Literacy -

• RST.11-12.1 Cite specific textual evidence to support analysis of science and technical texts, attending to important distinctions the author makes and to any gaps or inconsistencies in the account. (HS-ESS3-5)
• RST.11-12.2 Determine the central ideas or conclusions of a text; summarize complex concepts, processes, or information presented in a text by paraphrasing them in simpler but still accurate terms. (HS-ESS3-5)
• RST.11-12.7 Integrate and evaluate multiple sources of information presented in diverse formats and media (e.g., quantitative data, video, multimedia) in order to address a question or solve a problem. (HS-ESS3-5)
• SL.11-12.5 Make strategic use of digital media (e.g., textual, graphical, audio, visual, and interactive elements) in presentations to enhance understanding of findings, reasoning, and evidence and to add interest. (HS-ESS2-4)

Part V: Unit Essential Question  

    How are the oceans and climate change interconnected?

Part VI: Goals for Using Inquiry:

The goal for using inquiry in this unit is to have students develop their own supporting research questions around climate change, examine provided texts, select their own additional resources to use, and determine their analysis of the research question. The science teacher and the library media specialist have selected an anchor text about the role of the ocean in climate change and provided support for students in a set of texts which guide research around the oceans and climate change.

The goal for using inquiry in this unit is to have students examine the anchor text as an open invitation to inquiry about the oceans and climate change. Using the anchor text What is Ocean Acidification? as the base and one to two supportive texts, Covering Ocean Acidification: Chemistry and Considerations, about how climate change affects the chemistry of the oceans, students will develop their own set of inquiry questions (ex: “I wonder…”) for a culminating activity about the changing chemistry of marine bodies of water and the effects acidification of the ocean has on the organisms who call it their habitat.  Students will narrow down their inquiry questions to one specific, targeted question for which they seek to answer through the culminating activity.

Part VII: Summative Assessment Description and Rubric

The summative assessment will take the form of a final product created by the students. This product will vary in type from one group to the next but may be in the form of a website, multimedia presentation, physical model, video, or creative graphic which will illustrate their understanding of how the ocean and climate change are interconnected. Students will present this product in a showcase conference-presentation style. Members of the school and community will be invited to interact with the students and their products. There will be a rubric for for the product component and a separate one for the presentation.

Part VIII: Prior Knowledge Needed

Students will need prior knowledge in how to read a text. Students will need to know how to annotate a text. They will need some prior knowledge of the physical and chemical characteristics of the ocean. And, they will need prior knowledge on marine life and the necessities for marine life survival in different ecosystems. They will be taught through content the chemistry concepts needed which relate to acids and bases and other solution concepts.

Part IX: Student Learning Objectives

1. The student will be able to define climate change by reading and annotating an article about climate change.
2. The student will be able to identify chemical factors related to the properties of water and the oceans which impact climate change by applying information from the article about climate change.
3. The student will be able to distinguish between real and fake resources related to climate change by learning how to evaluate the credibility of a source. 
4. The student will be able to create a final product and presentation which demonstrates evidence of the connections they discovered between the oceans and climate change by using the provided rubric and conducting research and the final presentation.

Part X: Text Set Description (students will use the anchor and supporting texts to gain a better understanding of what ocean acidification is and the chemistry concepts behind it)

Part XI: Suggested Lesson Breakdown/Pacing
Please Note:

• Green Text indicates Chemistry Class Specific Content Activities.
• Blue Text Indicates Oceanography Class Content Specific Activities
• Purple Indicate Active Links to Materials that were used throughout this project and are free to be used and remixed as needed.
• Black Text indicates common activities that would be done in either/both an oceanography or a chemistry classroom

Please also note that some formatting changes have been lost between our template and this document. To view a clean copy of the Suggested Lesson Breakdown/Pacing (with text color changes for different content), click here.

Part XII: Attachment of Student Work Examples

(Please include links or attachments of 3 work samples that have been scored using your rubric and have feedback from both STEM teachers and the LMS. Consider including both exemplars and samples that have room for improvement. Please do not include student names or pictures.)

Oceanography Student Work Sample (good work sample)

Oceanography Student Work Sample Rubric (with teacher feedback)

Chemistry Students Work Sample (great example with teacher feedback included)

Chemistry Students Work Sample (good example that could have been improved)

Additional Evidence of Chemistry Student Work Samples

Part XIII: Teacher and Librarian Reflection on the Implementation of the Unit

• Reaching out to ask about copyrights/terms of service isn’t as scary as we thought!
• Copyrights/terms of service/privacy policies are confusing!
• Media Coordinator Reflection: I really enjoyed collaborating with two science teachers for this project. I had not collaborated very much work with my science department, or used inquiry for that matter, and I feel like I really grew as a professional throughout this process. I am rarely able to leave the physical walls of the media center to teach students in classrooms and the two science teachers felt this was important so I could see the students and interact with them in their respective classroom spaces. And, I really enjoyed teaching in a different space. This project has been the impetus for me to learn more about inquiry as I have registered to attend additional professional development in my district with regard to inquiry and social studies teachers and the social studies curriculum. All three of us are very strong users of technology, but Amy showed us how to remix our anchor text within a Google Doc scaffolding the material so that students could read and respond to questions all within one document. This is such a simple, yet powerful way to keep them engaged and focused on the inquiry while digesting the text. I hope Amy is able to share this process with other teachers in our school and our literacy team. One area of struggle was finding a clearly labeled open educational resource. And, even with my skills as a media coordinator we still struggled with this component of the project. We also narrowed our choices down to two articles and waffled between the two until we finally chose the one which became our anchor text. In hindsight, we would select the supporting text as the anchor when we teach this again. We all decided on the conference style presentation format for student projects. Our presentations took place on one day late in the school year in the media center. We went out on a limb and invited several VIPs in our district and many accepted our invitation to analyze and evaluate student work. These individuals could see firsthand the partnership between media coordinator and science teachers and the positive impact our collaboration had on student learning. This led us to apply to present about our teamwork at a state science conference and we are considering a request to consider applying to present at a national conference taking place in our city in about a year. It was extremely satisfying and humbling to bring such positive publicity to my role, my principal, and my school and I certainly would not have been able to achieve this level of success without partnering with my two colleagues.
• Oceanography Teacher Reflection: I loved being able to work with people I wouldn’t normally work with in this capacity! In the past, I have just consulted the LMS for lessons where I was incorporating just literacy or technology into my curriculum. It was a great experience to be able to bring her into the world of science! I also truly enjoyed challenging students to create inquiry based projects. I find that most students are used to being told exactly what to do with a project and it was nice to give them guidelines but also see what research they could come up with.
• Chemistry Teacher Reflection: This project really taught me a lot about how to use different sources and how to better incorporate literacy into my chemistry classroom on a more regular basis in a way that follows copyright laws. I learned how to recognize sources as open educational resources and then I learned how to remix them for my students to include scaffolds that make scientific readings more approachable for my students who have a variety of different levels of experience when it comes to scientific readings. 
• I also learned about working with other content areas and how to build off of my peers ideas to make lessons better. I liked being able to collaborate with my media specialist and fellow science teacher. It was awesome to have different perspectives and to see different approaches to things I may have tried in the past but were much better because my LMS was able to provide insights for the literacy side of things.
• One of the challenges I faced was trying to pull together all of the student work sample since many of my students projects had many different pieces some electronic (on powerpoints/slides) other had business cards or posters or videos that are not easy to incorporate into this template for others to view. Because there are so many pieces I need to create a template that the students can put everything together in one document in one place so that it is easier to grade and easier for the students to see it all come together.  When we did this project we used our learning management system Canvas and it was easy to grade that way but showcasing all that the students did for others isn’t very easy.