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.
This NASA animation of the Five-Year Average Global Temperature Anomalies from 1881 …
This NASA animation of the Five-Year Average Global Temperature Anomalies from 1881 to 2009 shows how temperature anomalies have varied in the last 130 years. The color-coded map displays a long-term progression of changing global surface temperatures from 1881 to 2009. Dark red indicates the greatest warming and dark blue indicates the greatest cooling.
This video introduces viewers to oceanic thermohaline circulation - the system of …
This video introduces viewers to oceanic thermohaline circulation - the system of global ocean currents that cycle warm and cold water across the planet.
Flubber Flow is a 30-minute activity in which teams of four to …
Flubber Flow is a 30-minute activity in which teams of four to five children experiment with Flubber and investigate how a solid can flow! They predict and model the properties of glaciers, view images of advancing glaciers, and create their own Flubber flow.
This resource has students role-play as farmers from around the world and …
This resource has students role-play as farmers from around the world and consider how agricultural practices are part of climate solutions. This resource includes role-play activities for students to learn more about La Via Campesina, one of the largest social movements around the world. Students get to discuss why they may not have heard of this in their history books and embody La Via Campesina activists.
In this activity, students listen to a podcast and then investigate causes …
In this activity, students listen to a podcast and then investigate causes of and solutions to food waste, plant-based recipes to get excited about, and the diversity and variety of heirloom foods.
Comprehensive curriculum/unit to teach how food systems affect climate change. Strong use …
Comprehensive curriculum/unit to teach how food systems affect climate change. Strong use of real data is embedded throughout. Full lessons, mini-lessons, and short videos are presented.
In this activity, students explore past examples of climate variability in three …
In this activity, students explore past examples of climate variability in three locations: the Peruvian and Bolivian Andes, Central America, and coastal Greenland, and consider differences between climate variability and climate change.
This video segment from the Earth Operators Manual summarizes how fossil fuels …
This video segment from the Earth Operators Manual summarizes how fossil fuels are made, provides a comparison of how long it takes to store energy in coal, oil and natural gas, and discusses how fast we're using them.
In this activity, students calculate temperatures during a time in the geologic …
In this activity, students calculate temperatures during a time in the geologic record when rapid warming occurred using a well known method called 'leaf-margin analysis.' Students determine the percentage of the species that have leaves with smooth edges, as opposed to toothed, or jagged, edges. Facsimiles of fossil leaves from two collection sites are examined, categorized, and the data is plugged into an equation to provide an estimate of paleotemperature for two sites in the Bighorn Basin. It also introduces students to a Smithsonian scientist who worked on the excavation sites and did the analysis.
This video features the story of a multi-generational, family-run dairy business in …
This video features the story of a multi-generational, family-run dairy business in Oregon. The family strives for sustainability in their operations by conserving energy and reducing greenhouse gases across many aspects of their business.
This video segment, adapted from Need to Know, discusses how the process …
This video segment, adapted from Need to Know, discusses how the process of hydraulic fracturing (fracking) is used to extract natural gas and how the process may be polluting water resources with hazardous chemicals, leading to health concerns.
This video is one of a series from the Switch Energy project. …
This video is one of a series from the Switch Energy project. It presents pros and cons of hydraulic fracturing, or fracking. In this video, new fracking technologies are presented as more economical and environmentally safe.
In this classroom activity, students analyze regional energy usage data and their …
In this classroom activity, students analyze regional energy usage data and their own energy bills to gain an understanding of individual consumption, regional uses, costs, and sources of energy.
In this activity, students will use oxygen isotope values of two species …
In this activity, students will use oxygen isotope values of two species of modern coral to reconstruct ambient water temperature over a four-year period. They use Microsoft Excel, or similar application, to create a spreadsheet of temperature values calculated from the isotope values of the corals by means of an algebraic equation. Students then use correlation and regression techniques to determine whether isotope records can be considered to be good proxies for records of past temperatures.
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