CLEAN: Climate Literacy and Energy Awareness Network
CLEAN: The Climate Literacy and Energy Awareness Network supports educators in building climate literacy as outlined in the U.S. Climate Change Science Program framework, “Essential Principles of Climate Literacy” by providing a collection of educational resources that facilitate learning about climate issues. The CLEAN collection is a free online database of ~1,000 free, peer-reviewed, and ready-to-use educational resources for teaching elementary, middle, high school, and undergraduate students about climate and energy. The collection contains activities, demonstrations, experiments, visualizations, and videos—everything you need to create data-rich and authentic lessons on climate and energy. Climate and energy topics include the climate system, causes of climate change, measuring and modeling climate, impacts of climate change, human responses and solutions to climate change, energy use, mental health, environmental justice, and many more. Resources are rigorously reviewed for scientific accuracy and pedagogic relevancy, making the CLEAN collection of high enough quality to steward the NOAA Teaching Climate database.
Bell Telephone Science Hour produced this video in 1958, explaining how the …
Bell Telephone Science Hour produced this video in 1958, explaining how the production of CO2 from factories and automobiles is causing the atmosphere to warm, melting the polar ice caps, and causing the sea level to rise.
In this short video, learn about actions that humans can take to …
In this short video, learn about actions that humans can take to mitigate climate change and adapt to its impacts. Use this resource to stimulate thinking and questions about climate change and to provide opportunities for students to design solutions and communicate information.
This video discusses how the populous areas west of the Andes are …
This video discusses how the populous areas west of the Andes are largely desert and rely on glacial meltwater as an important source of fresh water. Because the Peruvian glaciers high in the Andes are in rapid retreat, scientists are monitoring the steadily shrinking glaciers and the impact of their reduction on local populations.
This 3-activity sequence addresses the question: "To what extent should coastal communities …
This 3-activity sequence addresses the question: "To what extent should coastal communities build or rebuild?" The activity uses social science and geoscience data to prepare an evidence-based response to the question, in targeted US coastal communities.
The video offers a simple and easy-to-understand overview of climate change. It …
The video offers a simple and easy-to-understand overview of climate change. It poses basic questions such as 'What is it?' and 'How will it effect us?' and effectively answers those questions.
This video documents the effects of increasing global temperatures on biodiversity (changes …
This video documents the effects of increasing global temperatures on biodiversity (changes in distribution, range, and numbers) and human populations. Adaptations to climate change are also outlined.
This resource is part of a collection of visualizations that illustrate observed …
This resource is part of a collection of visualizations that illustrate observed changes in temperature, precipitation, storms, floods, and droughts. This resource focuses on US and Global temperature. Rising global average temperature is associated with widespread changes in weather patterns. Scientific studies indicate that extreme weather events such as heat waves and large storms are likely to become more frequent or more intense with human-induced climate change. The larger collection includes climate change indicators within the oceans, snow and ice, and other ecosystems and the effects on humans and our society.
This Jigsaw exercise has students discuss radio stories from the Yale Climate …
This Jigsaw exercise has students discuss radio stories from the Yale Climate Connections (YCC) project as a team to deepen their thinking around climate change issues.
This video focuses on the science of climate change and its impacts …
This video focuses on the science of climate change and its impacts on wildlife on land and in the sea, and their habitats in the U.S. There are short sections on walruses, coral reefs, migrating birds and their breeding grounds, freshwater fish, bees, etc. Video concludes with some discussion about solutions, including reduce/recycle/reuse, energy conservation, backyard habitats, and citizen scientists.
In this activity, students learn about how climate change is affecting the …
In this activity, students learn about how climate change is affecting the Arctic ecosystem and then investigate how this change is impacting polar bear populations. Students analyze maps of Arctic sea ice, temperature graphs, and polar bear population data to answer questions about the impact of climate change on the Arctic ecosystem.
Through this lesson plan your students will learn that human induced climate …
Through this lesson plan your students will learn that human induced climate change causes biodiversity disturbances and could be responsible for the increased risk of animal virus spillover into human populations. Thus, the use of this lesson plan allows you to integrate the teaching of a climate science topic with a core topic in Biological and Environmental Sciences. The lab allows students to explore the impact of climate change on an organism of their choice by doing a diachronic analysis of data from Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF).
This unit introduces high school students to climate change, the carbon cycle, …
This unit introduces high school students to climate change, the carbon cycle, and the effects of increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide on Earth's climate. Students create a model from string, toss bean bags, and sort chemical cards to review key processes in the carbon cycle. Then they quantitatively model the carbon cycle by playing a board game.
This activity covers the role that the oceans may play in climate …
This activity covers the role that the oceans may play in climate change and how climate change may affect the oceans. It is lesson 8 in a nine-lesson module Visualizing and Understanding the Science of Climate Change.
This unit consists of seven distinct activities that teach climate change, the …
This unit consists of seven distinct activities that teach climate change, the water cycle, and the effects of the changing climate on water resources through the use of games, science experiments, investigations, role-playing, research, and creating a final project to showcase learning.
This animation depicts global surface warming as simulated by NCAR's Community Climate …
This animation depicts global surface warming as simulated by NCAR's Community Climate System Model (CCSM) Version 3. It shows the temperature anomalies relative to the end of the 19th century, both over the entire globe and as a global average. The model shows the temporary cooling effects during 5 major volcanic eruptions and estimates future temperature trends based on different amounts of greenhouse gas emissions.
This PBS video focuses on sea level rise in Norfolk, Virginia and …
This PBS video focuses on sea level rise in Norfolk, Virginia and how the residents are managing the logistical, financial and political implications. Science journalists who have been studying Norfolk's rising sea level problems are interviewed, as well as local residents who are being impacted.
This video addresses how climate change is affecting the biomes and ecosystems …
This video addresses how climate change is affecting the biomes and ecosystems in the US Pacific Northwest, Alaska, Hawaii and the Caribbean Islands. It also highlights the impacts on infrastructure and defines key climate science terms.
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