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History of Climate Science Research

Videos

Grades9, 10, 11, 12, APChemistry, Earth and Space Sciences, History

This resource has been reviewed by SubjectToClimate's climate scientists and verified for scientific accuracy and up-to-date information. Learn about our review process →
Provided by UCAR Center for Science Education
Open Resource

What it is

  • This historic timeline details the discoveries made related to climate science, beginning with the discovery of gases in 1640.
  • Students will learn about the scientists and discoveries that enabled us to understand climate change and how climate change developed into the global problem it is today. 

Teaching tips

Positives
  • This timeline provides a thorough overview of climate science history.
  • Each section of the timeline is concise, engaging, and includes an image or video. 
Prerequisites
  • Students should have prior knowledge of climate change and its causes. 
Differentiation & Implementation
  • Cross-curricular connections can be made in social studies classes learning about the history of different scientific discoveries, or in language arts classes working on non-fiction reading strategies.
  • This resource lends itself well to a jigsaw activity, where each student is tasked with becoming an expert on one component of the timeline and presenting their learning to the class. 
  • As an extension, have students choose to add one component to the timeline through research or predict a future timeline component. 

From the scientist review

This is a comprehensive resource that underlines the history of climate science research. It records the level of transformation in climate science studies and how that has helped to shape our understanding on the present and future climate risk. This resource has no scientific misconceptions and is recommended for teaching.
How we review resources

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Hosted on scied.ucar.edu

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