TFG ClimateChange Complete. ORISE: Bioenergy Workforce Development for Educators. Box Plot Analysis of Forest Growth in a Pellet Mill Region Subject: 9th Grade Algebra 1 Students will create and compare box plots for forest area data. Data analysis will include five number summaries, range, interquartile range and outliers. Inspired by the research of Esther S. Parish, Center for BioEnergy Sustainability, Environmental Sciences Division, Oak Ridge National Laboratory Statistical Analysis of Forest Growth in a Pellet Mill Region Students will using graphing calculator technology to find mean, median and standard deviation for two sets of forest area data.
Linear Regression of Forest Growth in a Pellet Mill Region Students will create scatter plots and use their graphing calculator to find regression models for two sets of forest area data. Unit Conversions in Biofuel Applications Students will calculate common quantities used in agriculture. Inspired by the research of Erin Webb, Environmental Sciences Division, Oak Ridge National Laboratory Subject: 10th Grade Geometry.
Imaginary Marine Ecosystem Analysis 1. Climate Change: Vital Signs of the Planet: Engage: Changing Climate. If the evidence for global climate change is not understood or the potential impacts recognized, the challenges these present to the world cannot be addressed. There must be familiarity with the evidence of global climate change and how new technologies and policies can help address its challenges. Knowing how key Earth systems are changing in response to climate change and how they have changed in the past is crucial to understanding how they will likely change in the future. Similar to a doctor who checks a patient's vital signs-pulse, heartbeat, temperature, and so on-scientists regularly check Earth's vital signs, which informs us about the health of our planet: global temperature, atmospheric CO2, Arctic sea ice, land ice, and sea level.
Take a view from space at the "Blue Marble" and review your understanding of the Earth as a system. Meanwhile, in the tropics, local communities face different climate-change related challenges. ELI: Climate Change: Home. Climate Change is a technology-supported middle school science inquiry curriculum. This curriculum focuses on essential climate literacy principles with an emphasis on weather and climate, Earth system energy balance, greenhouse gases, paleoclimatology, and how human activities influence climate change.
Students use geospatial information technology tools (Google Earth), Web-based tools (including an interactive carbon calculator and geologic timeline), and inquiry-based lab activities to investigate important climate change topics. Climate Change is aligned to the Essential Principles of Climate Literacy in addition to national science and environmental education standards. Climate Change has been pilot tested in urban middle school classrooms. ELI is sponsored in part by the Lehigh Environmental Initiative. Grade 9 Archives - Green Learning. What is the future of Earth's climate? The High-Adventure Science Climate module has six activities. Explore the question, what will Earth's climate be in the future? Through a series of guided questions, you will explore interactions between factors that affect Earth's climate.
Explore temperature data from ice cores, sediments, and satellites and greenhouse gas data from atmospheric measurements, run experiments with computational models, and hear from a climate scientist working to answer the same question. You will not be able to answer the question at the end of the module, but you will be able to explain how scientists can be certain that Earth is warming while not being entirely certain about how much Earth will warm.
Climate Education Links | Earth Learning Solutions. Greenhouse Emissions Reduction Role-Play Exercise. This activity was selected for the On the Cutting Edge Reviewed Teaching Collection This activity has received positive reviews in a peer review process involving five review categories. The five categories included in the process are Scientific Accuracy Alignment of Learning Goals, Activities, and Assessments Pedagogic Effectiveness Robustness (usability and dependability of all components) Completeness of the ActivitySheet web page For more information about the peer review process itself, please see This page first made public: Apr 8, 2010 Summary When the science is so clear, why is it so difficult to make agreements that will reduce our impact on climate change? Learning Goals Content: Climate change science and climate change policy-making Goals: For students to explore the complexity and subtle aspects of the issue of climate change and eliminate black-and-white thinking about this issue.
Context for Use Teaching Materials Teaching tips. 3B: CO2 - My Life's Story. Part B: CO2—My Life's Story Atmospheric CO2 and temperature data taken from Vostok Ice Cores. Image source: Bowman Global Change and The Birch Aquarium, Scripps Institute of Oceangography, UCSD The carbon cycle has changed over Earth's history Imagine if fossils didn't exist.
How would we know that dinosaurs, woolly mammoths and other long-extinct creatures once roamed the Earth and swam in our oceans. Like fossils, carbon dioxide has left its own set of "clues" about past atmospheres and climates in ice cores a core sample that is typically removed from an ice sheet, most commonly from the polar ice caps of Antarctica, Greenland or from high mountain glaciers elsewhere. from Antarctica. Take several minutes to examine the graph pictured above and then answer the Checking In questions below. Discuss The ice core CO2 and temperature data you just explored raises some interesting, more complex questions. Ice cores come from every place in the world where ice accumulates over time. Checking In. Climate Change and Game-Based Learning. Teaching about complex interconnected systems like global climate change can be difficult.
There are many unseen pieces affecting the greater whole that young people (and many adults) might not understand. One approach to lifting this conceptual curtain for students is assigning the BrainPOP video on the topic prior to class, flipping the instruction. Try BrainPOP's Make-a-Map tool, which is an open-ended concept map, a playful assessment, to have students demonstrate interconnections. Making Climate Change Games At a recent conference, I learned about EcoChains: Arctic Crisis. This multiplayer card game was produced by the Games Research Lab at Columbia University's Teachers College, and was part of a National Science Foundation grant on climate change education. When students make their own climate-themed games, they will gain a deeper understanding of the topic.
This spring I took part in Climate Game Jam: Water, organized by NOAA. There were also different game categories: Climate Wizard. Global Warming Effects Map - Effects of Global Warming. The World's First Solar Road Is Producing More Energy Than Expected. By Katie Valentine Posted on Share this: "The World’s First Solar Road Is Producing More Energy Than Expected" Share: CREDIT: SolaRoad In its first six months of existence, the world’s first solar road is performing even better than developers thought. The road, which opened in the Netherlands in November of last year, has produced more than 3,000 kilowatt-hours of energy — enough to power a single household for one year, according to Al-Jazeera America.
“If we translate this to an annual yield, we expect more than the 70kwh per square meter per year,” Sten de Wit, a spokesman for the project — dubbed SolaRoad — told Al Jazeera America. De Wit said in a statement that he didn’t “expect a yield as high as this so quickly.” The 230-foot stretch of road, which is embedded with solar cells that are protected by two layers of safety glass, is built for bike traffic, a use that reflects the road’s environmentally-friendly message and the cycling-heavy culture of the Netherlands. Renewable Energy. This Living Lab offers you a chance to evaluate the renewable energy sources in the U.S. Renewable energy comes from natural resources such as wind, plant material, water (rain or tides), geothermal, or sunlight and is naturally replenished.
Both renewable and non-renewable energy sources are used to generate electricity, power vehicles, and provide heating, cooling, and light. Renewable sources of energy vary widely in their cost-effectiveness and in their availability across the United States. Although water, wind, and other renewables may seem free, the cost comes in collecting and transporting the energy to the places where energy is needed. For example, to utilize energy from water, a dam must be built along with electric generators and transmission lines. Enter the Living Lab to look at the available renewable energy sources. Wind Wind is kinetic energy - a mass of air moving with speed (or velocity). Biomass Hydro Geothermal Geothermal energy is heat energy from the Earth’s core.
Greenhouse gas benchmark reached. For the first time since we began tracking carbon dioxide in the global atmosphere, the monthly global average concentration of this greenhouse gas surpassed 400 parts per million in March 2015, according to NOAA’s latest results. “It was only a matter of time that we would average 400 parts per million globally,” said Pieter Tans, lead scientist of NOAA’s Global Greenhouse Gas Reference Network. “We first reported 400 ppm when all of our Arctic sites reached that value in the spring of 2012.
In 2013 the record at NOAA’s Mauna Loa Observatory first crossed the 400 ppm threshold. Reaching 400 parts per million as a global average is a significant milestone. Measuring greenhouse gases Patricio Eladio Rojas Ledezma, a Chilean meteorologist, collects air samples as part of NOAA's Global Greenhouse Gas Monitoring Network, on Easter Island, Chile, with a portable air sampler. NOAA bases the global carbon dioxide concentration on air samples taken from 40 global sites. Measuring gases at sea. Story of Stuff. Causes of Climate Change | Climate Change. Key Points Both natural and human factors change Earth’s climate. Before humans, changes in climate resulted entirely from natural causes such as changes in Earth’s orbit, changes in solar activity, or volcanic eruptions.
Since the Industrial Era began, humans have had an increasing effect on climate, particularly by adding billions of tons of heat-trapping greenhouse gases to the atmosphere. Most of the observed warming since the mid-20th century is due to human-caused greenhouse gas emissions. Earth’s temperature is a balancing act Earth’s temperature depends on the balance between energy entering and leaving the planet’s system .
View enlarged image Models that account only for the effects of natural processes are not able to explain the warming over the past century. Changes in the greenhouse effect, which affects the amount of heat retained by Earth’s atmosphere Variations in the sun’s energy reaching Earth Changes in the reflectivity of Earth’s atmosphere and surface Radiative Forcing. Extreme Ice Survey - Extreme Ice Survey. Earth Vision Institute | Earth Vision Institute, Founded by James Balog. Science. Download NASA's Eyes.
Seize Your Power. Sea Ice Atlas. Ivanpah. How Were Fossil Fuels Formed? Return to Challenges of Non-Renewable Energy This slideshow was produced by George Vibranz and Anne Glausser. Shale gas is a fossil fuel that formed millions of years ago. Different kinds of fossil fuels — coals, oils, and natural gases — formed as dead plants and animals decayed.
Scientists refer to such remains as “organic matter.” The element carbon is the foundation for organic matter on Earth. That means that countless carbon-based molecules remain buried far below Earth’s surface. Many of the carbon compounds are combustible — they can be used to release heat energy to produce electricity; power cars, planes, or trains; or keep your house warm on a cold evening. This narrated slide show is part of our Challenges of Non-Renewable Energy series. Pre-viewing Questions What do you already know about fossil fuels? Focus Questions for Viewing How did shale form over time? Post-viewing Questions Scientists say that nearly all of the energy on Earth comes from the sun. Extension Activity. Getting the Picture | Educators. The Big Energy Question.
Interactive Map: Four Ways to Look at Carbon Footprints. About this graphic Graphics by Stephen Rountree and Adam Marr Source: World Resources Institute CAIT 2.0 climate data explorer Emissions data and national boundaries are from 2010. For current emissions, per capita emissions, and intensity, the data are measured in tons of "carbon dioxide equivalent. " That is, they include carbon dioxide and five other greenhouse gases (methane, nitrous oxides, hydrofluorocarbons, perfluorocarbons, and sulfur hexafluoride) as measured by their global warming potential. Cumulative emissions are measured in tons of carbon dioxide only. The emissions of Brazil and Indonesia may be understated because the numbers do not include calculations on land use change and forestry.
Carbon Dioxide. U.S. Geological Survey: Climate and Land Use Change. Getting the Picture | Home. Footprint Basics - Overview. Human activities consume resources and produce waste, and as our populations grow and global consumption increases, it is essential that we measure nature’s capacity to meet these demands. The Ecological Footprint has emerged as one of the world’s leading measures of human demand on nature. Simply put, Ecological Footprint Accounting addresses whether the planet is large enough to keep up with the demands of humanity. The Footprint represents two sides of a balance sheet.
On the asset side, biocapacity represents the planet’s biologically productive land areas including our forests, pastures, cropland and fisheries. These areas, especially if left unharvested, can also absorb much of the waste we generate, especially our carbon emissions. Biocapacity can then be compared with humanity’s demand on nature: our Ecological Footprint. It now takes the Earth one year and six months to regenerate what we use in a year. We maintain this overshoot by liquidating the Earth’s resources. Seize Your Power.