SYNOPSIS: In this lesson, students research nuclear energy and advocate for its expansion or contraction in order to meet the goals of the Paris Agreement. Students form policy proposals and compromise on the best path forward.

SCIENTIST NOTES: This lesson enables students to understand the advantages and disadvantages of nuclear energy, particularly the fission process. They would also analyze the best energy plans and develop policy proposals that would achieve the Paris goal and address climate change. All activities and materials have been fact-checked, and this lesson is recommended for teaching.

POSITIVES:
-Students explore a topic that is relevant but may not be part of their daily routine.
-Students collaborate in research and discussion.
-Students have the opportunity to choose what to research.
-Students have the opportunity to discuss opposing arguments in a civil and productive way. Students must listen to one another to compromise on an energy policy.
-This lesson provides a grading rubric.

ADDITIONAL PREREQUISITES:
-Students can design local, national, or global policy proposals.
-Allow students to discuss freely and independently; offer guidance only when students appear off track or stuck.
-Make sure everyone has an opportunity to contribute to each group conversation.
-It may be necessary to coach your students on how to be a respectful listener. This includes making eye contact and refraining from looking at screens.
-This lesson can be split into multiple sessions or days. Parts of this lesson can also be assigned to be completed outside of regular class time.

DIFFERENTIATION:
-The extent of student research and detail in policy planning can be adjusted to student skill level.
-If your class has 24 students, you may have eight groups of students. Four of the groups would advocate for expanding nuclear energy capacity, and four of the groups would advocate for reducing nuclear energy capacity.
-It may be necessary to ask some students to take opposing viewpoints in order to have a balanced class. For example, if 19 of your 24 students want to expand nuclear energy capacity, some of them will have to switch sides in order to create more balance. It may be helpful to emphasize the fact that people with strong debating skills can argue both sides of any argument.

This capstone course is a group design project involving integration of nuclear physics, particle transport, control, heat transfer, safety, instrumentation, materials, environmental impact, and economic optimization. It provides opportunities to synthesize knowledge acquired in nuclear and non-nuclear subjects and apply this knowledge to practical problems of current interest in nuclear applications design. Each year, the class takes on a different design project; this year, the project is a power plant design that ties together the creation of emission-free electricity with carbon sequestration and fossil fuel displacement. Students taking Graduate / Professional version complete additional assignments. This course is an elective subject in MIT’s underGraduate / Professional Energy Studies Minor. This Institute-wide program complements the deep expertise obtained in any major with a broad understanding of the interlinked realms of science, technology, and social sciences as they relate to energy and associated environmental challenges.

A comprehensive analysis of all the components of the climate system (atmosphere, ocean, ice sheets, etc) and of all the interactions between them is out of the scope of any course or book. We have thus chosen here to provide only a brief overview of the processes that rule the behaviour of those different components. More detailed descriptions are provided in meteorology, oceanography and glaciology courses for instance. Our first goal here is rather to provide enough information on the interactions between the different elements of the climate system and on the dominant feedbacks to allow the student to analyse the variability of the climate and its response to a perturbation. By this mean, the reader should be able to understand the dominant causes of past climate changes and to critically evaluate the projections of the climate change over the next centuries or millennia.

Because of the complexity of the climate system, many analyses devoted to a quantitative estimate of climate change or climate variability rely on the use of comprehensive three-dimensional numerical models. However, simple models are also widely used to underline clearly the fundamental properties of the climate. Our second goal is thus to give the student the bases to understand how climate model are built and how they could be used to make quantitative estimate of climate variability and climate change as well as to illustrate how models could be used to understand the most important concepts of climate science.

This digital textbook was reviewed for its alignment with California content standards.


This online textbook could be followed section by section, presenting first the climate system and its components, then the way various types of climate models are developed and used, and finally the application of those concepts to the analysis of the climate during different periods.


This textbook presents all aspects of climate system dynamics, on all timescales from the Earth's formation to modern human-induced climate change. It discusses the dominant feedbacks and interactions between all the components of the climate system: atmosphere, ocean, land surface, and ice sheets. It addresses one of the key challenges for a course on the climate system: students can come from a range of backgrounds. A glossary of key terms is provided for students with little background in the climate sciences, whilst instructors and students with more expertise will appreciate the book's modular nature. Exercises are provided at the end of each chapter for readers to test their understanding. This textbook will be invaluable for any course on climate system dynamics and
modeling, and will also be useful for scientists and professionals from other disciplines who want a clear introduction to the topic.


- Covers all aspects of climate system dynamics and modelling for students, scientists and professionals

- Makes links between various relevant disciplines: atmospheric dynamics, physical and chemical oceanography, geology and numerical analysis

- Basic mathematical developments are presented but the concepts are also explained with words and illustrations

- Includes a full glossary and extensive end-of-chapter review exercises with solutions in the back of the book; the interactive models are also available online with regularly updated PowerPoint slides, including additional figures

This is a three-part class or lab activity that challenges students to define what a glacier is, how it differs from other parts of the cryosphere (such as sea ice), and what kinds of glaciers there are in the world. Part 1 (30-40 minutes) is a gallery walk activity for students to define a glacier and then test their definitions on example images. Part 2 (15-20 minutes) invites students to explore different types of glaciers found around the world through the OGGM-Edu Glacier Gallery app. Part 3 (15 minutes) is a debrief in the form of a mini-lecture, for which we provide the slides.

(Note: this resource was added to OER Commons as part of a batch upload of over 2,200 records. If you notice an issue with the quality of the metadata, please let us know by using the 'report' button and we will flag it for consideration.)

Most Americans are "energy illiterate." These lessons for high school students promote energy literacy, especially about oil. We begin with a student energy quiz, followed by three readings and suggested classroom activities.

On this site, through a variety of activities, you can learn about anthropology, archaeology, astronomy, biodiversity, the brain, climate change, the Earth, Einstein, expeditions, genetics, marine biology, paleontology, water, and zoology.

Developed by the World Affairs Council of Seattle, this teaching and learning module provides a series of lessons that engage students in exploring the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. With 17 goals in total, this ambitious framework targets local and global issues ranging from ensuring quality education for all to mitigating climate change. This set of lessons has student facing materials translated into Romanian. __________Elaborat de Consiliul de Afaceri Mondiale din Seattle, acest modul de predare și învățare oferă o serie de lecții care implică elevii în explorarea Obiectivelor de Dezvoltare Durabilă ale Organizației Națiunilor Unite. Cu un total de 17 obiective, acest cadru ambițios vizează probleme locale și globale, de la asigurarea unei educații de calitate pentru toți la atenuarea schimbărilor climatice.

Developed by the World Affairs Council of Seattle, this teaching and learning module provides a series of lessons that engage students in exploring the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. With 17 goals in total, this ambitious framework targets local and global issues ranging from ensuring quality education for all to mitigating climate change. This set of lessons has student facing materials translated into Spanish. .Desarrollado por el Consejo de Asuntos Mundiales de Seattle, este módulo didáctico proporciona una serie de lecciones que involucran a los estudiantes en la exploración de los Objetivos de Desarrollo Sostenible de las Naciones Unidas. Con un total de 17 objetivos, este marco ambicioso apunta a problemas locales y globales que van desde garantizar una educación de calidad para todos hasta mitigar el cambio climático.

This video segment produced for Teachers' Domain features a time-lapse video of clouds forming, changing, and moving across the sky.

Learn how snowfall happening later in the year than usual is impacting cultural practices in this video segment about climate change adapted from the College of Menominee Nation.

In this video segment adapted from the College of Menominee Nation, tribal members observe lower water levels in lakes and streams and call for global, collaborative solutions to address climate change.

A short video on the causes of ocean acidification and its effects on marine ecosystems.

This simulation allows students to explore the change in sea surface pH levels with increasing CO2 levels.

“Ocean Acidification, Imminent Mass Extinction?” is a unit for an Earth, Physical, or Environmental Science classroom. This unit is easily included in larger curricula focusing on climate change, the carbon cycle, human impact on Earth, or ocean chemistry. A backdrop for the unit is that ocean acidification may be jeopardizing global primary production because phytoplankton are being forced to adapt to a lower and lower pH. Loss of this piece of the food web has the potential to collapse massive, if not the most massive, ecosystems, hence mass extinction. Past mass extinction events are briefly discussed.

The unit begins by presenting the phenomenon of an ocean pH that is changing and then delves into the chemistry behind the change. The unit also considers the biological consequences of an ocean that is more acidic than it had been in millennia. Furthermore, implications to global carbon cycling are considered as the planet relies on microscopic ocean creatures to sequester carbon and transport it into long term storage. Lastly, the unit presents some recent research into the effects of the increased ocean acidity on an array of different organisms. Student activities are focused on hands on demonstrations that help students gain an understanding of pH; how pH is affected by carbon dioxide; and how shells are vulnerable to acidic conditons.

This NOAA video discusses how the ocean absorbs the increased amount of carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere, thereby changing the pH and buffering action of the ocean. These changes in pH are impacting calcifying organisms, such as corals and shellfish, and related food chains and ecosystems.

This activity is designed to be used as a jigsaw. Although each component could be individually used as desired. The activity is meant to be conducted in a three-phase approach.

Phase 1 involves small groups of "experts" focusing on one of our narrow topics related to ocean acidification. Students work together, using the Internet as necessary, to complete a short 10-15 minute activity while the instructor roams the room to clarify issues that arise.

Phase 2 involves small groups made up of one "expert" from each of the expert groups. This interdisciplinary group will work through a short 10-15 minute activity that encompasses the knowledge from each of the "experts" while the instructor roams the room to clarify issues that arise.

Phase 3 involves the entire class as a whole and to discuss and reflect upon the findings from each interdisciplinary group. The instructor leads this discussion.

(Note: this resource was added to OER Commons as part of a batch upload of over 2,200 records. If you notice an issue with the quality of the metadata, please let us know by using the 'report' button and we will flag it for consideration.)

This model of ocean-atmosphere interaction shows how carbon dioxide gas diffuses into water, causing the water to become more acidic. The video demonstration and instruction provide an explanation of the chemistry behind this change and the consequences of ocean acidification. The video also addresses a misconception about how ocean acidification affects shelled organisms.

Laboratory exercise to explore water density, surface ocean currents, and ocean circulation

(Note: this resource was added to OER Commons as part of a batch upload of over 2,200 records. If you notice an issue with the quality of the metadata, please let us know by using the 'report' button and we will flag it for consideration.)

This activity is a Google Slides playlist that will introduce fluctuations in thermohaline circulation, and potential impacts of changes in these patterns. This playlist is suitable for use in remote, hybrid, or in-person instruction and can easily be added to a Learning Management System.

Provenance: Molly Ludwick, Kings Mountain Middle School
Reuse: This item is offered under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike license http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/ You may reuse this item for non-commercial purposes as long as you provide attribution and offer any derivative works under a similar license.

(Note: this resource was added to OER Commons as part of a batch upload of over 2,200 records. If you notice an issue with the quality of the metadata, please let us know by using the 'report' button and we will flag it for consideration.)

In this classroom activity, students access sea surface temperature and wind speed data from a NASA site, plot and compare data, draw conclusions about surface current and sea surface temperature, and link their gained understanding to concerns about global climate change.