Climate Literacy
Clean: Generating Electricity: Evaluating the Sustainability Energy Sources
In this activity, students learn about the energy sources used by their local utility provider to generate electricity and work in small groups to evaluate the sustainability of either a renewable or non-renewable resource used to...
Climate Literacy
Clean: Animation for Grades 6 12
Students will create an animation to represent one of the many feedback loops that influences climate change. To create their animation, students will use clay, cut paper, whiteboard or other materials commonly found in the classroom....
Climate Literacy
Clean: Ocean Impacts on an El Nino Event
Students examine the relationships among sea surface height, sea surface temperature, and wind vectors in classifying the ocean characteristics of an El Nino.
Climate Literacy
Clean: A Fossil Thermometer
In this activity, students calculate temperatures during a time in the geologic record when rapid warming occurred using a well known method called 'leaf-margin analysis.' Students determine the percentage of the species that have leaves...
Climate Literacy
Clean: Sea Level Rise
Students will learn the difference between sea ice and glaciers in relation to sea level rise using topographic maps.
Climate Literacy
Clean: Tropical Atlantic Aerosols
Young scholars will use real satellite data to determine where the greatest concentrations of aerosols are located during the course of a year in the tropical Atlantic region and their source of origin.
Climate Literacy
Clean: Ocean Currents and Sea Surface Temperature
To discover the link between ocean temperatures and currents as related to our concern for current climate change.
Climate Literacy
Clean: Global Patterns in Green Up and Green Down
Students analyze and explore visualizations and graphs that show the annual cycle of plant growth and decline. They investigate several regions in each hemisphere that have different land cover and will match graphs that show annual...
Climate Literacy
Clean: Temperature and Precipitation as Limiting Factors in Ecosystems
Students correlate graphs of vegetation vigor with those of temperature and precipitation data for four diverse ecosystems, ranging from those near the equator to the poles, to determine which climatic factor is limiting growth.
Climate Literacy
Clean: March of the Polar Bears: Global Change, Sea Ice, and Wildlife Migration
Students use NASA satellite data to study temperature and snow-ice coverage in the South Beaufort Sea, Alaska. With the data, they investigate global change, sea ice changes, and polar bear migration.
Climate Literacy
Clean: The Earth's Heat Budget
Learners investigate the effects of distance and angle on the input of solar radiation at the Earth's surface, the role played by albedo, and the heat capacity of land and water.
Climate Literacy
Clean: Global Warming Webquest
Students collaborate as part of a climate action team and learn how society and the environment might be impacted by global warming. Student teams investigate how and why climate is changing and how humans may have contributed to these...
Climate Literacy
Clean: Home Energy Quiz
Students take an Energy Quiz to identify home improvements that could make their homes more energy efficient.
Climate Literacy
Clean: Mauna Loa Co2 Collection Data
This data-intensive activity uses real world datasets to cover topics such as weather v. climate, air circulation around the globe, seasonal effects, and climate change.
Climate Literacy
Clean: Exploring Green Jobs
Using an online tool, students learn about what green jobs might suit their personal styles. Then they look at different Green Jobs to explore possible careers.
Climate Literacy
Clean: Carbon Footprint
In this lesson learners investigate how much greenhouse gas (carbon dioxide and methane) their family releases into the atmosphere each year and relate it to climate change. To address this, students use the Environmental Protection...
Climate Literacy
Clean: Going for a Spin Making a Model Steam Turbine
Students explore how various energy sources can be used to cause a turbine to rotate and then generate electricity with a magnet.
Climate Literacy
Clean: Automotive Emissions and the Greenhouse Effect
This is a laboratory activity in which students will compare the amount of carbon dioxide in four different sources of gas and determine the carbon dioxide contribution from automobiles. They test ambient air, human exhalation,...
Climate Literacy
Clean: Carbon Cycle
This activity from NOAA Earth System Research Laboratory introduces young scholars to the current scientific understanding of the greenhouse effect and the carbon cycle. The activity leads them through several interactive tasks...
Climate Literacy
Clean: Bering Sea Expedition
In this investigation learners research the effects of melting sea ice in the Bering Sea Ecosystem. They create research proposals to earn a place on the scientific research vessel Healy and present their findings and proposals to a...
Climate Literacy
Clean: Car Quest
In this activity, students will determine the environmental effects of existing cars and a fleet consisting of their dream cars. They compute how many tons of heat-trapping gases are produced each year, how much it costs to fuel the...
Climate Literacy
Clean: How Does Temperature Affect the Solubility of Co2 in Water?
This short investigation from Carbo Europe explores how temperature relates to the solubility of carbon dioxide in water.
Climate Literacy
Clean: Uptake of Carbon Dioxide From Water by Plants
Two simple experimental demonstrations show the role of plants in mitigating the acidification caused when carbon dioxide is dissolved in water.
Climate Literacy
Clean: Interactive Geologic Timeline Activity
For this learning activity, learners use a web-based geologic timeline to examine temperature, CO2 concentration, and ice cover data to investigate how climate has changed during the last 715 million years. Students will gain an...