This list of carefully selected books for grades K-5 highlights nonfiction about climate proxies, those preserved physical characteristics, such as fossils, that scientists use to reconstruct past climates. Also highlighted are a few books that provide information about two past climatic events -- the last ice age and the Dust Bowl. In each issue of the free, online magazine Beyond Weather and the Water Cycle, the virtual bookshelf recommends books that accurately portray the theme drawn from the principles of climate sciences.

This activity will help students to identify and analyze factors contributing to Earth's climate systems.

Provenance: Beverly Owens, Cleveland Early College High School
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Learn about the different features of snow and ice in Antarctica using satellite imagery in this video segment adapted from NASA.

Students perform a lab to explore how the color of materials at Earth's surface affect the amount of warming. Topics covered include developing a hypothesis, collecting data, and making interpretations to explain why dark-colored materials become hotter.

Hands-on laboratory activity that allows students to investigate the effects of distance and angle on the input of solar radiation at Earth's surface, the role played by albedo, the heat capacity of land and water, and how these cause the seasons. Students predict radiative heating based on simple geometry and experiment to test their hypotheses.

In this activity students explore the Earth's radiation budget using Earth radiation Budget Experiment (ERBE) data archived at the IRI/LDEO Climate Data Library (more info) .

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A computer animation on the reason for the seasons. Voice-over describes the motion of Earth around the sun to show how the sun's light impacts the tilted Earth at different times of the year, causing seasonal changes.

SYNOPSIS: This lesson is an exploration of climate change data, including greenhouse gases, global temperature, ice melt, and sea level rise.

SCIENTIST NOTES: This lesson lets students explore almost real-time data on the ways human-caused global warming is disrupting different earth systems. All of the external links use the highest quality data available and are considered reputable sources. This lesson has passed our science quality assessment.

POSITIVES:
-This lesson is all about curiosity and exploration. Students make meaning from all of this data collectively. This should be a very social activity as students share noticings, wonderings, and realizations with each other.
-This can be a very hands-off lesson, as students guide their own learning and discussion.

ADDITIONAL PREREQUISITES:
-You must copy the Student Slideshow, share it with your students, and grant them editing rights. They will be writing in the slideshow during the lesson.
-The data from these sources is always being updated.
-There are other greenhouse gases that students will not explore. These are the fluorinated gases, "a family of man-made gases used in a range of industrial applications." (Source: EU Commission)

DIFFERENTIATION:
-Seeing the extent of these numbers might cause feelings of anxiety, sadness, anger, despair, or surprise in some students. Make sure to remind them that those feelings are normal and natural. Sharing those feelings with the class usually helps students feel better. Encourage students to share their honest reactions.
-This exploration and these discussions might naturally lead into the “What can we do about it?” discussion.
-These graphs are all unsustainable. It might be useful to use these graphs to better explain the concept of sustainability to the students.
-Students should feel free to conduct research on their own to better understand their resources. For example, students can research sources of atmospheric nitrous oxide.
-It is a good thing if students have more questions leaving this class than when they entered.

This NASA video provides a nice overview of Earth's water cycle from the perspective of looking at Earth from space.

This highly informative site explores five different ecosystems and the public health issues that have arisen in each. Students can explore the different ways that ecosystem services that address air quality, heat hazard mitigation, recreation and physical activity, water hazard mitigation, and water quality impact many health conditions.

Eco-Social Work in Climates of Change examines the role of social work in disconnecting Indigenous people from their lands and cultural ways of connecting to land. As with other disciplines like economics, social work is mired in a modern worldview that is disconnected from Earthly relations; a disconnection that has fueled both the profession’s colonial growth and contemporary global environmental issues. We are in a time of changes when social work needs to re-learn the value(s) of rooting environmental justice and healing practices in the broader sociality of Earth relations, and that is the focus of this course.

Individual project designed to combine basic oceanographic concepts in the creation of a travel brochure. Involves some group interaction, but project is individual. Can be done online or in a face-to-face class.
Best completed at midterm or later in the semester so that most concepts have been introduced.

LEARNING OUTCOMES

Describe major oceanic processes and evaluate their influence on the coastal environment.
2Use global data on climate and wind patterns to quantify and describe conditions at various specific coastal sites.

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Students explore their own Ecological Footprint in the context of how many Earths it would take if everyone used the same amount of resources they did. They compare this to the Ecological Footprint of individuals in other parts of the world and to the Ecological footprint of a family member when they were the student's age.

Ecological urbanism weds the theory and practice of city design and planning, as a means of adaptation, with the insights of ecology (the study of the relationships among living organisms and their environment and the processes that shape both) and other environmental disciplines. Ecological urbanism is critical to the future of the city and its design: it provides a framework for addressing challenges that threaten humanity, such as climate change, rising sea level, declining oil reserves, rising energy demands, and environmental and social injustice, while fulfilling human needs for health, safety, welfare, meaning, and delight.

Ecologies of Construction examines the resource requirements for the making and maintenance of the contemporary built environment. This course introduces the field of industrial ecology as a primary source of concepts and methods in the mapping of material and energy expenditures dedicated to construction activities.

This course provides a review of physical, chemical, ecological, and economic principles used to examine interactions between humans and the natural environment. Mass balance concepts are applied to ecology, chemical kinetics, hydrology, and transportation; energy balance concepts are applied to building design, ecology, and climate change; and economic and life cycle concepts are applied to resource evaluation and engineering design. Numerical models are used to integrate concepts and to assess environmental impacts of human activities. Problem sets involve development of MATLAB® models for particular engineering applications. Some experience with computer programming is helpful but not essential.

This course provides a review of physical, chemical, ecological, and economic principles used to examine interactions between humans and the natural environment. Mass balance concepts are applied to ecology, chemical kinetics, hydrology, and transportation; energy balance concepts are applied to building design, ecology, and climate change; and economic and life cycle concepts are applied to resource evaluation and engineering design. Numerical models are used to integrate concepts and to assess environmental impacts of human activities. Problem sets involve development of MATLABĺ¨ models for particular engineering applications. Some experience with computer programming is helpful but not essential.

Students learn how rooftop gardens help the environment and the lives of people, especially in urban areas. They gain an understanding of how plants reduce the urban heat island effect, improve air quality, provide agriculture space, reduce energy consumption and increase the aesthetic quality of cities. This draws upon the science of heat transfer (conduction, convection, radiation, materials, color) and ecology (plants, shade, carbon dioxide, photosynthesis), and the engineering requirements for rooftop gardens. In the associated activity, students apply their scientific knowledge to model and measure the effects of green roofs.

Ecology For All! Is an ecology text designed in modules so that instructors can choose the pieces that make sense to assign in their context. This book has been in development for several years and is a collaborative effort of authors at Gettysburg College, Franklin & Marshall College, and University of Pittsburgh. The textbook covers a wide range of topics including Introduction to Ecology, Evolution, Adaptations to the Physical Environment, various ecological communities, Population Ecology, Behavioral Ecology, Species Interactions, Ecological Succession, Biogeochemical Cycles, Landscape Ecology, Biodiversity, Conservation Biology, and Human Impact on Global Climate among others. The authors have presented on it at the Ecological Society of America meeting and the book continues to evolve.

This video focuses on the conifer forest in Alaska to explore the carbon cycle and how the forest responds to rising atmospheric carbon dioxide. Topics addressed in the video include wildfires, reflectivity, and the role of permafrost in the global carbon cycle.