This short animated video provides a brief overview of the greenhouse effect and related vocabulary.
Teaching Tips
Positives
This video promotes students' thinking about the Earth's temperature and how humans are impacting this system.
Additional Prerequisites
The video and transcripts are available to download in both Spanish and English.
The video only briefly mentions how the burning of fossil fuels contributes to the greenhouse effect. This should be further emphasized by teachers.
Differentiation
It might be beneficial to pause the animation at various points to discuss different components of the greenhouse effect.
Teachers could task students with summarizing what they have seen in this video through concept maps, songs, skits, drawings, etc.
Students could conduct research about the major contributors to the Greenhouse effect and how humans are influencing this process.
Students could brainstorm solutions to limit greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere.
Other resources on the greenhouse effect include this video by Smile and Learn, this activity by NASA Climate Kids, this lesson plan for 3rd-5th grade, and this lesson plan for 6th-8th grade.
Scientist Notes
The resource highlights the concept of the Greenhouse effect. Human activities are accelerating average global temperatures to be beyond reach. Students can explore this resource to gain an understanding of the causative factors influencing the climate system and proffer sustained climate solutions to limit Greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere. Recommended for teaching.
Standards
Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS)
ESS2: Earth's Systems
MS-ESS2-6 Develop and use a model to describe how unequal heating and rotation of the Earth cause patterns of atmospheric and oceanic circulation that determine regional climates.
ESS3: Earth and Human Activity
MS-ESS3-5 Ask questions to clarify evidence of the factors that have caused the rise in global temperatures over the past century.
4-ESS3-1 Obtain and combine information to describe that energy and fuels are derived from natural resources and that their uses affect the environment.
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.
