Possible pre-course reading of the Introduction of:
"Smart Solutions to Climate Change: Comparing Costs and Benefits" Ed. BjÃrn Lomborg
Global Warming and You--handout (Microsoft Word 44kB Oct27 10)

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Field trip handout (Microsoft Word 52kB Oct27 10)

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Title: (Global issues, local action)Audience: 22 students, 14 years old, Mixed A1 to B1 English level.Overview: Students should be able to global issues related to climate change and their signs worldwide and link the issue to their immediate environment in Jordan with the climate changes the region has experienced so far. Then, students will design posters representing different climate issues and applicable solutions in Jordan. Learning objective: Students should be able to create posters in group work that present a practical solution for a global issue.

In this classroom activity, students analyze visualizations and graphs that show the annual cycle of plant growth and decline. They explore patterns of annual change for the globe and several regions in each hemisphere that have different land cover and will match graphs that show annual green-up and green-down patterns with a specific land cover type.

This animation shows predicted changes in temperature across the globe, relative to pre-industrial levels, under two different emissions scenarios in the COP 17 climate model. The first is with emissions continuing to increase through the century. The second is with emissions declining through the century.

Over the past few years, “smart cities” have led in leveraging technology to modernize their services and infrastructure— and have emerged on the global stage on key issues of international concern. In 2017, Hidalgo and Horacio Rodríguez Larreta, Mayor of Buenos Aires, spearheaded the Urban 20 (U20), a platform for major cities in G20 countries to bring their “urban perspective” to the G20 member states in tackling common problems, showcasing their innovative approaches leveraging emerging technologies at the local level to tackle global issues. In April 2018, mayors from 20 cities signed the U20’s first Joint Declaration; six months later, representatives from more than 30 cities convened for the U20’s inaugural summit in Buenos Aires. This summer, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti had a private audience the Pope Francis at the Vatican, where the two discussed climate change, poverty, youth, and immigration. There are over 200 local-global organizations impacting international relations and policy, largely because of the pace at which they are embracing technology and innovation.

This resource is a video abstract of a research paper created by Research Square on behalf of its authors. It provides a synopsis that's easy to understand, and can be used to introduce the topics it covers to students, researchers, and the general public. The video's transcript is also provided in full, with a portion provided below for preview:

"Known as the “Roof of Africa”, the highlands of Ethiopia are a lofty oasis. Though situated near the equator, the region enjoys cool temperatures year-round thanks to its high elevation—about 1200 meters above sea level. But a changing climate could change that over the next century. Researchers at MIT project that towards the end of the 21st century the Ethiopian highlands in East Africa will be at a significantly high risk for transmitting malaria, transforming this temperate haven into a breeding ground for disease. The work follows up on the team’s previous research on West Africa. There, the researchers acknowledged, malaria currently poses a big threat. A combination of high rainfall and warm temperatures create the ideal conditions for mosquitos to breed and spread disease..."

The rest of the transcript, along with a link to the research itself, is available on the resource itself.

Wetlands have come under significant pressure in recent decades, resulting in the loss of many wet ecosystems around the world and across climatic zones. Despite this loss, wetlands have received significantly less attention than other ecosystems such as forests or coral reefs, resulting in a lack of public awareness. Wetland ecosystems currently provide livelihoods to more than one billion people, support up to 40% of all species, and act as large carbon stores. This poster illustrates the underlying causes for the decline in wetlands, the resulting consequences for physical and social systems as well as possible solutions to this problem.

This resource is a video abstract of a research paper created by Research Square on behalf of its authors. It provides a synopsis that's easy to understand, and can be used to introduce the topics it covers to students, researchers, and the general public. The video's transcript is also provided in full, with a portion provided below for preview:

"The future of renewable energy has never looked greener Amid a changing climate and dwindling fossil fuel resources renewable energy technology is quickly gaining traction But one big obstacle is the uncertainty in renewable energy production While rechargeable lithium-ion batteries could help cushion swings in wind and solar their metallic components tend to be expensive and time-consuming to produce and pose a big electronic waste problem For that reason, researchers are turning toward more eco-friendly materials for batteries So-called organic electrodes are highly stable, easy to process, and energy-dense Like their inorganic counterparts, they shuttle lithium ions into and out of their chemical structure to deliver power And because they are largely carbon-based, they’re naturally abundant and even recyclable Scaling up the production of these materials remains an issue But already they point to a much greener future for renewable energy Oubaha et al..."

The rest of the transcript, along with a link to the research itself, is available on the resource itself.

This sequence of instruction was developed to help elementary teachers who are working remotely.  We developed a short storyline that ties together a few sessions to help explore a specific concept.  We tried to include some activities that honored and included the student’s family and experience, and some that included the potential for ELA learning goals.
"Good Vibrations" is designed around students making observations of sounds and the way sounds are transmitted to answer the questions: How can improve the design of a string telephone?(How does sound behave in and between different materials?)
It is part of Clime Time - a collaboration among all nine Educational Service Districts (ESDs) in Washington and many Community Partners to provide programs for science teacher training around Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) and climate science, thanks to grant money made available to the Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI) by Governor Inslee. 

This sequence of instruction was developed in the Growing Elementary Science Project to help elementary teachers who were working remotely.  We developed a short storyline that ties together a few sessions to help explore a specific concept.  We tried to include some activities that honored and included the student’s family and experience, and some that included the potential for ELA learning goals.Unlike other units in our series, this was not developed as a complete stand-alone unit. Our intent, in this case, was to provide a set of options for the teacher, as well as some materials for consideration of opportunities to integrate reading in science.It is part of ClimeTime - a collaboration among all nine Educational Service Districts (ESDs) in Washington and many Community Partners to provide programs for science teacher training around Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) and climate science, thanks to grant money made available to the Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI) by Governor Inslee. 

A detailed Google Earth tour of glacier change over the last 50 years introduces this topic in an engaging way. Students are then asked to select from a group of glaciers and create their own Google Earth tour exploring key characteristics and visible changes in that glacier.

This lesson introduces students to the concepts of air pollution and technologies that have been developed by engineers to reduce air pollution. Students develop an understanding of visible air pollutants with an incomplete combustion demonstration, a "smog in a jar" demonstration, construction of simple particulate matter collectors and by exploring engineering roles related to air pollution. Next, students develop awareness and understanding of the daily air quality and trends in air quality using the Air Quality Index (AQI) listed in the newspaper. Finally, students build and observe a variety of simple models in order to develop an understanding of how engineers use these technologies to clean up and prevent air pollution.

This Web site, created to complement the Museum's Gottesman Hall of Planet Earth, offers a virtual visit to the Museum, complete with text, photos, and a downloadable desktop background. The site contains information on ten exhibition highlights.

Students learn about energy and nutrient flow in various biosphere climates and environments. They learn about herbivores, carnivores, omnivores, food chains and food webs, seeing the interdependence between producers, consumers and decomposers. Students are introduced to the roles of the hydrologic (water), carbon, and nitrogen cycles in sustaining the worlds' ecosystems so living organisms survive. This lesson is part of a series of six lessons in which students use their growing understanding of various environments and the engineering design process, to design and create their own model biodome ecosystems.

This applet is an ocean acidification grapher that allows user to plot changes in atmospheric C02 against ocean pH, from 1988 to 2009, in the central North Pacific.

Students use long term sea-level rise data set to create models and compare short-term trends to long-term trends. They then determine whether sea-level rise is occurring based on the data.

In this activity, students learn about sea ice extent in both polar regions (Arctic and Antarctic). They start out by forming a hypothesis on the variability of sea ice, testing the hypothesis by graphing real data from a recent 3-year period to learn about seasonal variations and over a 25-year period to learn about longer-term trends, and finish with a discussion of their results and predictions.

In this video segment adapted from NOVA, a meteorologist explains how an unusual weather pattern led to one of the most devastating floods of this century.