Different approaches to teaching the reading comprehension strategy of inferring in K-5 classrooms are identified in this article. The article appears in the free, online magazine Beyond Weather and the Water Cycle, which is structured around the essential principles of climate science.

Making predictions is a skill readers need for comprehending fiction and nonfiction. Three lessons are identified here to give young readers opportunities to make predictions about nonfiction text found in print or on web pages. The lessons are aligned with the national standards for English language arts. The article appears in the free, online magazine that focuses on the seven essential principles of climate literacy.

This article identifies online lesson plans that can be used to introduce visualizing, a comprehension skill important to both science and literacy learning. Each of the lessons meets NCTE/IRA English language arts standards. The article appears in the free online magazine Beyond Weather and the Water Cycle, which is structured around the seven essential principles of climate science and literacy.

Concepts underlying the first of the Essential Principles of the Climate Sciences are aligned with topics typically taught in the elementary grades. This article identifies lessons that will help elementary students develop an understanding of how Sun's light warms Earth and how variations in daylight hours are associated with seasonal change. This article appears in the free, online magazine Beyond Weather and the Water Cycle.

This article includes lessons that elementary teachers can use to build the foundations of climate literacy while meeting elementary science standards. Lessons are paired with literacy activities as well.

If you follow environmental news at all, you'll be familiar with the most common cause of extinction in the world today: habitat loss. Habitat destruction threatens the survival of some the world's most charismatic organisms animals like the giant panda, the Sumatran tiger, and the Asian elephant. Humans have encroached on the wilderness in order to farm, mine, log, and build, and in the process, we've pushed the natural inhabitants of those areas into smaller and smaller refuges. Making matters worse, global climate change caused by our production of greenhouse gases is altering the environments within those refuges, forcing species to contend with new challenges. While these might seem like entirely modern problems, recent research indicates that's not the case and that current levels of habitat loss and climate change could have devastating consequences.

In early 2021, 80 Washington citizens from all walks of life gathered virtually to learn from 40 presenters to make recommendations to the Washington state legislature about how to mitigate climate change in our state. Specifically, the Assembly addressed was:How can Washington State equitably design and implement climate mitigation strategies while strengthening communities disproportionately impacted by climate change across the State?This series uses videos of the Assembly speakers to help teachers increase their climate change background knowledge, explore teaching resources and consider ways to bring this learning to students. Each session of the series includes 1 - 3 related recorded presentations from the Climate Assembly, plus accompanying materials, and activities. 

This activity allows students to examine graphs of sea level rise data as well as global temperature data. They calculate amounts and rates of sea level rise for various time periods and answer questions discussing the data. They then compare the sea level rise trends to those in a graph of temperature data.

This lesson for 16-17 year old students, engage them to reflect on how to mitigate climate change. It incorporates technology tools and pedagogical practices.

In this article, a school librarian looks at ways the elementary teacher can find support in the school library for introducing inquiry-based, technology-enriched science concepts to K-Grade 5 students. She describes the national "@ your library" campaign, which stresses collaboration between school librarians and teachers. The article appears in the free, online magazine Beyond Weather and the Water Cycle, which focuses on the seven essential principles of climate science.

In this activity, students conduct a life cycle assessment of energy used and produced in ethanol production, and a life cycle assessment of carbon dioxide used and produced in ethanol production.

This content was created as a lab manual to accompany the fully online lab associated with Life Science in a Changing Climate, a non-majors biology course. It contains mainly original content with some figures and images taken from open-resources. Each figure is attributed with the source page in the figure description, in accordance to each respective license. The content covers background information, the setup to the online lab activity, and a climate connection.

With two simple classroom experiments and easy-to-read text, this original story is designed to introduce young learners to the greenhouse effect. The author provides different versions of the story for grades K-2 and 3-5, as well as different formats for differentiated instruction. The free online magazine Beyond Weather and the Water Cycle focuses on principles of climate literacy that are appropriate for young learners.

This multi-week project begins with a measurement of baseline consumptive behavior followed by three weeks of working to reduce the use of water, energy, high-impact foods, and other materials. The assignment uses an Excel spreadsheet that calculates direct energy and water use as well as indirect CO2 and water use associated with food consumption. After completing the project, students understand that they do indeed play a role in the big picture. They also learn that making small changes to their lifestyles is not difficult and they can easily reduce their personal impact on the environment.

The Lifestyle Project is a way for students to learn about environmental alternatives by modifying their own lifestyles. It is a three-week exercise for students to reduce their impact on the environment by changing the way in which they live from day to day. The project has fairly rigid parameters, allowing students to achieve a gradual but definitive change in their everyday habits. Students choose three categories from a list of six: heat, garbage, electricity and water, driving, eating, and activism. For each category the rules are clearly defined, such as turning down the heat three degrees or eliminating the use of the car. Each week the project becomes more rigorous, because students will have to meet the requirements more frequently. They write about their experiences in journals, which are incredibly insightful, illustrating just how profoundly the project affects them.

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This five-week project asks students to examine the environmental outcomes of their lifestyle choices, to investigate and try out more sustainable choices, and to write about their experiences.

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I use the Lifestyle Project in my Introduction to Environmental Issues class. This 3-week project asks students to make changes to their everyday environmental habits. This helps students realize that they have control of their lives and they can make decisions and make changes if they want to. And, given this empowerment, students can think about their impacts on Earth and their obligations to the planet and our society.

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This three-week project begins with a measurement of "baseline" consumptive behavior followed by two weeks of working to reduce the use of water, energy, high-impact foods, and other materials. The assignment uses an Excel spreadsheet that calculates direct energy and water use as well as indirect CO2 and water use associated with food consumption.

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 How can we show the ways our society prioritizes environmental issues? Life on Land, Life below water, Clean Water and Sanitation, and Climate Action .... Do surrounding communities prioritize the solving of environmental issues differently? How do communities unite individuals to be part of the solution to these environmental problems?  

SYNOPSIS: In this lesson, students identify the main character in a story and identify their character traits.

SCIENTIST NOTES: This lesson allows students to demonstrate traits from 5 scenarios about energy conservation, biodiversity, and waste management. It is suitable to build their passion towards environmental sustainability and stewardship. All materials and activities in the lesson have been reviewed and are appropriate. On that account, this lesson is recommended for teaching.

POSITIVES:
-Students have the opportunity for auditory, kinesthetic, and visual learning.
-Students have the opportunity to work independently, in small groups, and in whole group discussions.
-Students are able to share their diverse ideas and perspectives in a variety of creative ways.

ADDITIONAL PREREQUISITES:
-Teachers should print handouts prior to the lesson.
-Art supplies are required for comic strips.

DIFFERENTIATION:
-You have many options for how your students read Saving Planet Earthly.
-Students can read independently or in small groups.
-You can read the story out loud to the entire class.
-You may play the audio version while students follow along. The audio version is 8 minutes, 57 seconds long.
-You may read the scenario sheet out loud before students begin acting in the Investigate section.
-Students may be placed in groups of mixed abilities.
-A word bank of personal characteristics can be used to assist students in learning and creating character reactions to scenarios.