Statement of Dr. James Hansen to Congress - 1988

• This is a transcribed verbal statement Dr. James Hansen made to Congress regarding global warming.
• The statement is one section of a larger report prepared as a transcript of a hearing in front of the Committee On Energy And Natural Resources.
• The hearing was the first session on the greenhouse effect and global climate change.

Positives

• Useful in a lesson or unit about primary sources, this transcribed statement proves that information regarding global warming has been acknowledged since, at least, 1988.
• This document will be an excellent starting point for a discussion about the history behind the science of studying climate change.
• The report predicts the extreme weather events of today as a direct result of the greenhouse effect.
  

Additional Prerequisites

• Students should have prior knowledge of global warming and climate change.
• The report contains rigorous vocabulary. Teachers may wish to provide a definition list as extra support.
• Information is presented as a small portion of a much larger document, so teachers should closely monitor to ensure student focus.
• "Viewgraphs" and "figures" that are mentioned are located further in the document and not included in this verbal statement.
  

Differentiation

• Since the information is presented methodically, with clearly delineated topics, teachers can assign sections of the transcript to small groups, then conduct a round robin discussion of verbal summaries.
• Connections can be made in math and statistics classes when learning about data analysis.
• Educators who teach annotations will find this document helpful since the resource can be downloaded.  After downloading, students will be able to annotate either individually, or as a  small-group jigsaw activity.