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Teacher shares a photo of greenhouse gas molecules.
For one minute, students write down everything they know about the photo.
Students may write about:
Hydrogen, oxygen, carbon, and nitrogen.
Colors or quantities of each molecule.
Nitrous oxide (laughing gas) from going to the dentist.
What the letters and numbers mean in the molecular formula (e.g., H2O).
Students share what they wrote down with the rest of the class.
Teacher shares definitions from the glossary.
For one minute, students write about how these molecules relate to the Earth (land, ocean, air, etc.).
Teacher creates groups of 3-4.
Students explore the following resources. As they explore the resources, they will answer the guiding questions.
Group 1: Trends in Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide (Source: NOAA)
Group 2: Trends in Atmospheric Methane and Trends in Atmospheric Nitrous Oxide (Source: NOAA)
Group 3: Global Temperature (Source: NASA)
Group 4: Daily Sea Ice Timeseries & Maps and Arctic Sea Ice Extent (Sources: University of Maine & NASA)
Group 5: Sea Level and Global Mean Sea Level (Source: NASA)
Guiding questions for the students:
What is this data telling us?
How is this impacting the world?
How does this data connect to the data that the other groups are investigating?
Each group of students shares their takeaways with the rest of the class.
Types: Interactive Media, Data
Types: Data, Interactive Media
Types: Data, Interactive Media
NASA
Global Temperature
Types: Data, Interactive Media
Climate Change Institute, University of Maine
Daily Sea Ice Timeseries & Maps
Types: Data, Interactive Media
Types: Data, Interactive Media
NASA
Sea Level
Type: Data
Type: Data
Students complete a written reflection responding to the following prompts:
How is all this data connected?
What should we do about it?
Positives
This lesson is all about curiosity and exploration. Students make meaning from all of this data collectively. This should be a very social activity as students share noticings, wonderings, and realizations with each other.
This can be a very hands-off lesson, as students guide their own learning and discussion.
Additional Prerequisites
Differentiation
Seeing the extent of these numbers might cause feelings of anxiety, sadness, anger, despair, or surprise in some students. Make sure to remind them that those feelings are normal and natural. Sharing those feelings with the class usually helps students feel better. Encourage students to share their honest reactions.
This exploration and these discussions might naturally lead into the “What can we do about it?” discussion.
These graphs are all unsustainable. It might be useful to use these graphs to better explain the concept of sustainability to the students.
Students should feel free to conduct research on their own to better understand their resources. For example, students can research sources of atmospheric nitrous oxide.
It is a good thing if students have more questions leaving this class than when they entered.
