This comprehensive resource about global warming, Earth's climate history, and the factors affecting Earth's climate includes student worksheets in English and Spanish, a "Click and Learn" presentation, animated graphs, instructional videos, and a question and answer session.
The interactive presentation discusses oxygen isotopes, ocean sediment cores, glacial and interglacial periods, Milankovich cycles, solar activity, greenhouse gases, and the effects of climate change on water supplies and agriculture.
Teaching Tips
Positives
The content is updated and the many graphs of carbon dioxide and temperature over different time scales are very illuminating.
Student learning targets and curriculum connections are provided.
Additional Prerequisites
Students should be familiar with reading and analyzing graphs and data.
Students should be familiar with keywords such as climate, carbon dioxide, extinction, global warming, and ice age.
Differentiation
Science classes could use this resource as a homework assignment before covering the material in class.
There are many connections that can be made to biology, chemistry, and Earth science classes because it covers so many topics, such as isotopes, feedback loops, the greenhouse effect, Earth's orbit, energy balance, and global cycles.
Students can be divided into groups and given a different topic to "jigsaw," where students research, analyze, and then teach their peers what they learned.
This resource critically explores evidence of a changing climate from hindcasting geologic time scales and other physical parameters. It provides a deeper understanding of the interactions of the greenhouse effect, the oceans, and solar radiation influencing the Earth's climate system. Human activities have accelerated climate change faster than during the industrial revolution and limiting CO2 concentrations to cut down average global temperatures to 1.5 degrees Celsius will be beyond reach by 2100. This resource is recommended.
Standards
Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS)
ESS2: Earth's Systems
HS-ESS2-2 Analyze geoscience data to make the claim that one change to Earth’s surface can create feedbacks that cause changes to other Earth systems.
HS-ESS2-4 Use a model to describe how variations in the flow of energy into and out of Earth’s systems result in changes in climate.
HS-ESS2-5 Plan and conduct an investigation of the properties of water and its effects on Earth materials and surface processes.
ESS3: Earth and Human Activity
HS-ESS3-5 Analyze geoscience data and the results from global climate models to make an evidence-based forecast of the current rate of global or regional climate change and associated future impacts to Earth systems.
Common Core English Language Arts Standards (CCSS.ELA)
Reading: Science & Technical Subjects (6-12)
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RST.11-12.7 Integrate and evaluate multiple sources of information presented in diverse formats and media (e.g., quantitative data, video, multimedia) in order to address a question or solve a problem.
World-Readiness Standards for Learning Languages (ACTFL)
Connections: Connect with other disciplines and acquire information and diverse perspectives in order to use the language to function in academic and career-related situations.
3.1 Making Connections: Learners build, reinforce, and expand their knowledge of other disciplines while using the language to develop critical thinking and to solve problems creatively.
