Extreme Weather and Climate Change
(View Complete Item Description)This video explores what scientists know about how changes in global climate and increasing temperatures affect different extreme weather events.
All resources in Oregon Science
Global Climate Change: The Effects of Global Warming
(View Complete Item Description)The activity follows a progression that examines the CO2 content of various gases, explores the changes in the atmospheric levels of CO2 from 1958 to 2000 from the Mauna Loa Keeling curve, and the relationship between CO2 and temperature over the past 160,000 years. This provides a foundation for examining individuals' input of CO2 to the atmosphere and how to reduce it.
Material Type: Activity/Lab
Global Climate Change and Sea Level Rise
(View Complete Item Description)In this activity, students will practice the steps involved in a scientific investigation as they learn why ice formations on land (and not those on water) will cause a rise in sea level upon melting. This is a discovery lesson on ice and water density and displacement of water.
Material Type: Activity/Lab
Inuit Observations of Climate Change
(View Complete Item Description)This video features changes in the land, sea, and animals that are being observed by the residents of Sachs Harbour, Northwest Territories, Canada â many of whom hunt, trap, and fishâbecause of their long-standing and intimate connection with their ecosystem. Scientists interview the residents and record their observations in order to deepen our understanding of climate change in the polar region. Background essay and discussion questions are included.
Is Climate Change Just a Lot of Hot Air?
(View Complete Item Description)This short video illustrates how warming ocean temperature is a major factor in climate change, particularly the increase in severity of extreme weather (notably storms and drought).
The Little Ice Age: Understanding Climate and Climate Change
(View Complete Item Description)This is a classroom activity about the forcing mechanisms for the most recent cold period: the Little Ice Age (1350-1850). Students receive data about tree ring records, solar activity, and volcanic eruptions during this time period. By comparing and contrasting time intervals when tree growth was at a minimum, solar activity was low, and major volcanic eruptions occurred, they draw conclusions about possible natural causes of climate change and identify factors that may indicate climate change.
Material Type: Activity/Lab
Liz Hadly Tracks the Impact of Climate Change in Yellowstone
(View Complete Item Description)This video highlights specific climate change-related phenomena that are threatening the flora and fauna of Yellowstone National Park.
NOVA: Climate Change
(View Complete Item Description)This video segment describes climate data collection from Greenland ice cores that indicate Earth's climate can change abruptly over a single decade rather than over thousands of years. The narrator describes how Earth has undergone dramatic climate shifts in relatively short spans of time prior to 8000 years ago. The video and accompanying essay provide explanations of the differences between weather and climate and how the climate itself had been unstable in the past, with wide variations in temperature occurring over decadal timescales.
PETM: Unearthing Ancient Climate Change
(View Complete Item Description)In this video, a team of paleontologists, paleobotanists, soil scientists, and other researchers take to the field in Wyoming's Bighorn Basin to document how the climate, plants, and animals there changed during the Paleocene- Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM). During this time a sudden, enormous influx of carbon flooded the ocean and atmosphere for reasons that are still unclear to scientists. The PETM is used as an analog to the current warming. The scientists' research may help inform our understanding of current increases in carbon in the atmosphere and ocean and the resulting impact on ecosystems.
Predicting the Effects of Climate Change on Soil Loss
(View Complete Item Description)In this activity, students investigate soil erosion and how a changing climate could influence erosion rates in agricultural areas. This activity is part of a larger InTeGrate module called Growing Concern.
Material Type: Activity/Lab
Science for a Hungry World: Agriculture and Climate Change
(View Complete Item Description)This NASA video explores the relationship between climate and agriculture. The video discusses the variability of climate impacts in different regions, as well as the effects of population growth and higher demands for food in areas that already struggle to supply food for the people. The video highlights the need for accurate, continuous, and accessible data and computer models from NASA satellites to track and predict the challenges farmers face as they adjust to a changing climate.
Shine - Mini climate change musical
(View Complete Item Description)This learning activity is a climate change musical for K-12, youth groups or faith organizations. Shine weaves together climate science and performance art into a fun and powerful story, which spans 300 million years of geological time to convey how humanity, energy, and climate are interrelated.
Material Type: Activity/Lab
Shrinking Glaciers: A Chronology of Climate Change
(View Complete Item Description)This video features scientists in New Zealand's Southern Alps, examining samples from the rocky landscape once dominated by glaciers. Their research, combined with other climate records, has revealed a link between glacial retreat and rising levels of carbon dioxide in the air.
Teaching Middle Schoolers Climate Change
(View Complete Item Description)Test
Material Type: Case Study
Understanding the Carbon Cycle and Climate Change in 4th Grade
(View Complete Item Description)This unit will help 4th or 5th grade teachers prepare students to explore two big questions related to the Earth’s changing climate. The primary goal is to nurture an understanding of the element carbon, Earth’s carbon cycle, and how carbon dioxide and other gases contribute to the planet warming greenhouse effect of Earth’s atmosphere. The questions are: 1) What is carbon and why are all living things on Earth considered to be carbon-based lifeforms? 2) What is the greenhouse effect and why should we care about how much carbon is in our atmosphere? These questions align with the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) for 4th grade that many states have adopted or adapted.1 An annotated list of the applicable NGSS and state science standards can be found in the appendix of this curriculum unit. Under the NGSS, 4th grade students study concepts related to energy and learn that all fuels used to meet our continuously growing energy demand are derived from natural resources. Consequently, the production and usage of some energy resources adds more carbon dioxide to Earth’s atmosphere. Students are just beginning to develop an understanding of how human activities can impact the Earth and result in either positive or negative consequences.
Material Type: Lesson Plan, Unit of Study
What do You Know about Climate Change?
(View Complete Item Description)This online quiz tests knowledge about climate change, its impacts, how we know about earth's climate, and potential solutions.
Why fly south? How climate change alters the phenology of plants and animals
(View Complete Item Description)This activity introduces students to plotting and analyzing phenology data. Students use 30 years of data that shows the date of the first lilac bloom and the number of days of ice cover of nearby Gull Lake.
Material Type: Activity/Lab
World Climate: Climate Change Negotiations Game
(View Complete Item Description)This simulation provides scenarios for exploring the principles of climate dynamics from a multi-disciplinary perspective. Interconnections among climate issues, public stakeholders, and the governance spheres are investigated through creative simulations designed to help students understand international climate change negotiations.
Material Type: Activity/Lab
RE Sources, Sustainable Schools -Watersheds and Stormwater
(View Complete Item Description)Students build a watershed model to define what a watershed is, identify the different parts within a watershed, and discover how water moves within a watershed. After learning Best Management Practices and mitigation techniques, students rebuild their models.
Material Type: Activity/Lab, Interactive, Lesson, Lesson Plan
Discover Your Local Watershed
(View Complete Item Description)Watershed Awareness using Technology and Environmental Research for Sustainability (WATERS) The WATERS project is developing and researching a student-centered, place-based, and accessible curriculum for teaching watershed concepts and water career awareness for students in the middle grades. This 10-lesson unit includes online, classroom, and field activities. Students use a professional-grade online GIS modeling resource, simulations, sensors, and other interactive resources to collect environmental data and analyze their local watershed issues. The WATERS project is paving a path to increased access to research-based, open access curricula that hold the potential to significantly increase awareness of and engagement with watershed concepts and career pathways in learners nationwide. This material is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License. The software is licensed under Simplified BSD, MIT or Apache 2.0 licenses. Please provide attribution to the Concord Consortium and the URL https://concord.org.
Material Type: Activity/Lab, Lesson