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Trends in Atmospheric Sulfur Hexafluoride

Provided by: NOAA |Published on: April 27, 2021

Graphs/Tables

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Synopsis

How has the amount of sulfur hexafluoride in the atmosphere changed over the past 40 years? This site allows users to interact with graphs and datasets to answer this question.
Students will be able to see graphs depicting global average sulfur hexafluoride amounts in the atmosphere and read text describing the data and how it was gathered.

Related Teaching Resources

Subjects: Earth and Space Sciences

Authors: NOAA

Region: Global

Languages: English

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Teaching Materials

Positives

The graphs are simple and easy to interpret.

Additional Prerequisites

Teachers may want to provide some background about sulfur hexafluoride's relationship to climate change.
Students may need help understanding the units mole fraction and parts per billion.

If the technical reading is distracting, there are PDFs of the graphs and data that teachers can use instead.
The data is also downloadable in CSV files.

Differentiation

The reading is very technical and is probably most appropriate for upper high school students.
Students can work independently or in a small group to create a list of noticings and wonderings about the data.
Students could research how sulfur hexafluoride is released into the atmosphere and potential solutions to limit this greenhouse gas.
Other helpful resources include this video about greenhouse gases from Hot Mess and this video about the greenhouse effect from Khan Academy.

Scientist Notes

Teaching Tips

Standards

Resource Type and Format

Related Teaching Resources

All resources can be used for your educational purposes with proper attribution to the content provider.