Download Climate Change - Pacific Science Center

Climate
Change
Sphere Demo
©2017 Pacific Science Center
Created as part of the Exploring Earth Systems Science
grant; This project was made possible in part by the Institute
of Museum and Library Services grant number MA-10-130107-13.
Please direct questions to: [email protected]
Terms of use:
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These materials are for non-commercial use only, and cannot be sold.
These materials are for your organization’s internal use only. Additional
requests should be made before sharing beyond your organization.
If these materials or a portion of these materials are copied as is, please
credit as follows: “Climate Change demonstration created by Pacific Science
Center, Exploring Earth Systems Science grant. This project was made
possible in part by the Institute of Museum and Library Services grant
number MA-10-13-0107-13”.
If new activities are created that are based on this original activity, please
credit as follows: "Activity modified from the Climate Change demonstration
created by Pacific Science Center, Exploring Earth Systems Science grant.
This project was made possible in part by the Institute of Museum and
Library Services grant number MA-10-13-0107-13”.
Description
Climate Change is a live, 20 minute demo best for grades 6-8, featuring Science on
a Sphere, a dynamic interactive data modeling tool. In this show, the audience will
use science practices such as planning investigations and analyzing data to explore
earth systems. Using hands-on props and interaction with a live science
interpreter, they will learn about the difference between weather and climate and
what causes climate change as well as discuss how our climate is changing and
potential solutions.
Props and Materials
Permanent
iPad
Laser pointer
Science Toolbox
Signs for science toolbox
o Ask a Question
o Investigate
o Use a Model
o Construct an Explanation
o Communicate Information
5 metal sign holders
Paper map
3 books
Big yellow key
Legend for temperature anomaly data-set
Carbon balance
Blocks for carbon balance
o Medium-sized red block with people and animals
o Large-sized red block with decomposition of banana, etc
o Large-sized blue block with waves
o Medium-sized blue block with waves
o Small-sized blue block with sea life
o Medium-sized blue block with sea life
o Medium-sized blue block with trees and plants
o Small-sized blue block with trees and plants
o Small-sized red block with fossil fuels
o Small-sized red block with cars
o Small-sized red block with plugs and outlets
o Small-sized red block with smokestacks
Packing
iPad: Put away in the cabinet in the office, making sure it is locked.
Laser pointer: Put away in the Sphere cabinet.
Science Toolbox and Toolbox signs: Keep the signs inside the Toolbox and
leave the Toolbox in the cart.
Paper maps and books: Leave these in the top drawer inside the demo cart.
Title: Climate Change
©2016 Pacific Science Center, p. 2
Big yellow key: Leave this on top of the demo cart.
Metal sign holders: Put them in bottom plastic drawer on the metal shelf to the
left when you walk into the cart closet.
Carbon Balance: Put this in the corner next to the white lamp for Strange Planets.
Blocks for Carbon Balance: Put these in the white bin and place the bin at the
foot of the Carbon Balance.
Maintenance
Treat the Toolbox and vocabulary signs with care. They can easily break or get
scratched.
Carry the Carbon Balance from the base, not from the swinging arms.
Treat the blocks for the Carbon Balance with care. They can easily break or get
scratched.
Key
G Guest
P Presenter
Bold italics indicate action.
Italics indicate a note to the presenter.
 indicates a cue
Data-sets
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Climate Change Demonstration starting here soon
What is climate?
How does climate change?
Is our climate changing?
NOAA logo.
Clouds: Real Time
Temperature Anomaly: Monthly
What is climate? Weather patterns that emerge over at least 30
years.
How does climate change?
Venus (the dataset from Alien Landscapes?)
Carbon dioxide concentration GEOS-5 model
How does climate change? Change the composition of the
atmosphere.
Is our climate changing?
Carbon Tracker – Slide Scale 2001-2010
Temperature Anomaly: Monthly
Climate Model: Temperature Change (Hadley a1b) - 1870 – 2100
Is our climate changing? Yes.
Sea Level Trends 1993 - 2012
Facebook
Title: Climate Change
©2016 Pacific Science Center 3
Climate Change
Concept
Weather refers to atmospheric conditions in a specific time and place whereas
climate refers to atmospheric conditions that form a pattern over time.
Atmospheric carbon dioxide acts like a heat-trapping blanket over the Earth.
Natural phenomena emit carbon into the atmosphere and other natural phenomena
absorb carbon, creating a balance. Burning fossil fuels releases carbon into the
atmosphere that cannot be balanced out by natural phenomena.
The climate is changing and will continue to change, which will affect us in various
ways, including sea level rise. Communication will help people to create
community-level solutions to address reduction of carbon emissions.
Learning Objective
Visitors will compare real-time weather data to climate data in order to determine
the difference between weather and climate.
Visitors will compare the atmosphere of Venus to that of Earth, observing that
Venus’s high temperature is a result of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
Using blocks to represent different natural phenomena and a balance beam, visitors
create a balance between carbon dioxide emitted and absorbed into the
atmosphere. Using additional blocks representing fossil fuel emissions, visitors
demonstrate that burning fossil fuels releases carbon into the atmosphere that
cannot be balanced out by natural phenomena.
After viewing data on climate, climate models, and sea level rise models, visitors
will discuss ways to communicate to create community-level solutions to address
reduction of carbon emissions.
Set-up
1. Open the Sphere cabinet, turn off daily demo, and call up the show
announcement playlist.
2. Push the benches so that there are several rows facing the Sphere.
3. Set up the carbon balance to one side.
4. Roll the demo cart to the other side.
5. Set up the metal sign holders along the railing of the sphere.
6. Make sure the correct cards for the Science Toolbox are in the Science
Toolbox, and put the toolbox in the cart.
7. Make sure you have the correct legend for the big yellow key, and put the
key in the cart for future use.
8. Put the blocks for the Carbon Balance in the cart. Also put the paper map
and books in the cart so that they are easily accessible for when they will be
used in your demo.
9. Open the Climate Change playlist, and have the iPad and laser pointer ready.
Title: Climate Change
©2016 Pacific Science Center 4
Script
Pre-Show
 Cue next dataset, which will be a blank/black sphere.
This will let you keep the attention of your audience for the intro portion of
the show.
Intro
P: Hi! My name is ______________. Can everyone say, “Hi, ______________?”
G: Hi, _______________.
P: Today we’re going to talk about climate change. Climate change is something
you’ve probably heard about before; it’s in the news a lot. What’s the first word
you think of when you think of climate change?
G: Hot. Doom. It’s not real. Greenhouse. Pollution. Skeptics. It’s a lie.
P: Great. There are a lot of different ideas out there, which can make this topic
confusing. Whenever I’m confused about something, I turn to science. Science
isn’t about politics or opinions; it’s about gathering information, proving things
using information, and drawing likely conclusions.
Science Toolbox
P: Let’s take a look at some of the tools scientists use. Take out toolbox and
pretend to dig through it. The tools in here help me figure out what to do step
by step. Ooh, let’s try this one. What does it say? Put up ‘Ask A Question’ tag.
G: Ask a question!
P: Great. Lots of people have questions about climate change—whether it’s really
happening, how do we know it’s happening, why is there such a controversy about
it? To address some of those questions, I’d like to take a step back and ask a really
simple question: what is climate change? Let’s see what else is in here that we
might need. What’s this one? Pretend to dig through it and put up
‘Investigate’ tag.
G: Investigate!
P: Awesome! Sometimes planning an investigation means breaking down the
question. When I ask, “what is climate change?” I want to know what climate is.
 What is climate?
P: Then I want to know how climate changes.
 How does climate change?
Title: Climate Change
©2016 Pacific Science Center 5
P: Last, I want to know if our climate is changing.
 Is our climate changing?
P: Great! Here’s our investigation: we’ll find out what climate is and how climate
changes, then determine whether our climate is changing.
Science on a Sphere
P: Does anyone have any ideas about the first part of this investigation, climate?
What is climate?
G: It’s a hoax, a scam, an invention of the press, weather, weather over time, it’s
all a lie!
P: These are all great answers. I’ve heard it has something to do with the weather.
As it turns out, we have a lot of information about the weather. I have books,
diagrams, maps. Take out books, diagrams, and map. Look, I have these
pictures taken from space that show the weather of the whole world. Look at
picture. Hm. Yes. Oh, I see. What, did you want to see? Turn the picture
around so the audience can see. This is kind of small. Maybe we can just spend
the next twenty minutes looking at this one at a time. Oh, you don’t like that idea?
You know what, this map isn’t really accurate anyway. It’s flat and the world is
round. I wish I had something really big and round that everyone could see.
Something we could all look at to see the weather.
G: Look behind you, stupid.
P: No, I’m not sure my head is big enough. Oh, you mean this?
 NOAA logo.
P: What a great idea! This is called “Science on a Sphere” and it was given to
Pacific Science Center by NOAA, which is the National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration. Can we get a big round of applause for NOAA?
G: Clap clap clap
P: We can use the sphere to look at information about the entire Earth. A map like
this isn’t useful for finding your way to Starbucks or grandmother’s house. You
can’t see smaller things such as roads or buildings, but you can see information
about larger things, such as landmasses, oceans, and the weather.
Climate Vs Weather
P: What were we investigating again?
G: Climate change, climate, the weather, hoaxes, the evil lying media.
P: Fantastic! Let’s look at the weather.
Title: Climate Change
©2016 Pacific Science Center 6
 Clouds: Real Time
P: Can someone tell me what you see?
G: Clouds. White streaks. Weather! Climate!
P: Satellites, take pictures like these of the Earth, and scientists can use these
images to predict whether it will be cloudy, and even if it might rain. Is this
climate?
G: Yes. No. We don’t know.
P: Lots of people get confused, but this information is only showing us the weather,
not climate. This is climate.
 Temperature Anomaly: Monthly
P: Wait, this isn’t climate! This is just a white globe with some red stuff and blue
stuff. I’m going to need a key to find out what these colors mean. Hm. I think I
have a key somewhere. Take out key. Do you think this will help?
G: You are preposterous. Ha ha ha!
P: Actually, this is exactly the kind of key we need! Turn key over to show the
color code. This kind of key tells me what these colors mean. Select a guest.
Hi, what’s your name?
G: Hillary.
P: Excellent, Hillary. Since we’re seeing a bunch of white, can you tell me what
white means using this key? Hand the key to the guest.
G: White is average 20th century temperature.
P: Excellent! On this map, white is the average and blue or red is different from
the average. We got the white by averaging the temperature for that month in that
location from 1901 to 2000. For instance, in Seattle the average temperature in
September for the past century is around 61 degrees Farenheit. If this September
our average temperature is warmer than 61 degrees, Seattle will look red on this
image. If our average temperature is colder than 61 degrees, Seattle will look blue
on this map. What’s the difference between looking at this information and the
weather information we saw earlier?
G: Averages?
P: We’re dealing with weather over a long period of time—patterns that emerge
through decades of information. The average temperature—the white color—is an
example of climate because we’re looking at 100 years’ worth of temperatures.
Okay, now we know what climate is.
Title: Climate Change
©2016 Pacific Science Center 7
 Cue: What is climate? Weather patterns that emerge over at least 30
years.
Heat-Trapping Blanket
P: What was the next part of my investigation?
 Cue: How does climate change?
P: How does climate change? This is a hard question. Since climate is something
that occurs over decades, centuries, and even millennia, how and why it changes
can be difficult to measure. To figure this out, we need to talk about what makes
our climate. We know that how close our planet is to the Sun affects our
temperature, which can drive wind and storms. But Earth’s temperature isn’t just a
result of being close or far from the Sun. One way we know this is by looking at
other planets.
 Venus
P: This is Venus. Venus is closer to the Sun than we are, and it’s way hotter. But
Mercury is even closer to the Sun than Venus, but Venus is still hotter than
Mercury. It’s the hottest planet in the solar system. Any clue why that is?
G: Girls are from Venus?
P: Venus is so hot because of its atmosphere. Atmosphere is the gas all around
you. The color that you see on this image are thick clouds made mostly of carbon
dioxide. Has anyone heard of carbon dioxide?
G: Yes. No. Maybe so.
P: Carbon dioxide is a kind of gas, and there is a whole lot of it on Venus. The gas
acts like a heat-trapping blanket all over the planet, making it warmer. Our own
atmosphere has just a little carbon dioxide—let’s check out how much.
 Carbon dioxide concentration GEOS-5 model
 Pause dataset.
P: This model shows carbon dioxide levels. Red is high concentration of carbon
dioxide and blue is low.
 Play dataset.
P: As you can see, there are high concentrations of carbon dioxide changes. This is
due to movement of the air. But what would happen if we had more carbon dioxide
overall in our atmosphere, if carbon dioxide works like a heat-trapping blanket?
G: We would get hotter.
P: Right, so we’re addressing our how to change the climate question—we could
change the composition of Earth’s atmosphere. But how would we do that?
Title: Climate Change
©2016 Pacific Science Center 8
Carbon Balance
P: To find out, let’s figure out where carbon dioxide comes from. Everyone take a
deep breath. Hold it! Hold it! Hold it! Now breathe out. Does anyone know the
name of the gas you just breathed out?
G: Carbon dioxide?
P: Yeah! All animals release carbon dioxide. I happen to have some people and
animals right here! Take out the medium-sized red block with people and
animals. Can I get a volunteer to help me with this? What is your name?
G: Donald.
P: Donald, go ahead and place that carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, right here.
Point to one side of the carbon balance. Whoa, Donald! All that carbon dioxide
we breathe out unbalanced the Earth. Maybe there’s something that takes in
carbon dioxide that will put the balance back?
G: Plants?
P: Yeah! And I happen to have some plants right here! Give them the smallsized blue block with trees and plants on it and the medium-sized blue
block with trees and plants on it. These are all the plants on land. Can I get a
volunteer to help me with this as well? What is your name?
G: Bernie.
P: Awesome, Bernie. Go ahead and put these plants over here. Whoa, Bernie!
You balanced our Earth’s atmosphere! Go ahead and ring the bell—that means that
nature balances out the amount of carbon dioxide in the air. Okay, but aside from
that carbon dioxide in the air, I’ve heard of carbon in other things. Who’s heard the
term “carbon based life”? Can I get a show of hands?
G: *show of hands*
P: Yeah, we all have carbon in us, and so does every living thing on Earth. Okay
Donald, I’m going to give you some more carbon. Give them the large-sized red
block with decomposition of banana, etc. Where do you think this carbon
comes from?
G: Bananas?
P: Where do you think the carbon in living things go after they die? Some of it
combines with oxygen and goes into the air—go ahead and put that on the Earth.
Now, some of the carbon gets buried. After millions of years, that carbon is
compressed by the Earth into what we call fossil fuels—oil, coal, and natural gas—
but this carbon doesn’t go into the air. Instead of putting it into the atmosphere,
can you just put it on the floor? Okay, that’s underground. Okay Bernie, I have
something else for you—what do you think this is? Give them the large-sized
blue ocean block with waves, the small-sized blue block with sea life, and
Title: Climate Change
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the medium-sized blue block with sea life.
G: The ocean. With crabs.
P: Right! Ocean water absorbs carbon dioxide—this is a chemical reaction between
the gas and the liquid. And life in the ocean, like ocean plants, can also take in
some carbon dioxide. Okay Bernie, go ahead and put the ocean on your side.
What happened?
G: It balanced.
P: Okay, ring the bell! Awesome! This is what is constantly occurring on Earth all
the time. Natural sources release carbon and natural phenomenon, called carbon
sinks, take carbon back in. Okay, let’s go back to fossil fuels—coal, oil, and natural
gas. We use some of these things for fuels. When we burn the carbon in these
things, where do you think it goes?
G: Into the atmosphere.
P: Into the atmosphere! Donald, take the fossil fuels and put them on your side.
Give them the small-sized red block with fossil fuels. We’re out of balance
again. Bernie, is there anything you can do? Give him the medium-sized blue
ocean block with waves. The ocean is really big, and can hold a lot of carbon.
Natural processes can compensate for some of what we do. Ring that bell again.
But we’re using fossil fuels—and we’re using them fast. What do we use them for?
G: Cars!
P: Donald, here are some cars! Give them the small-sized red block with cars
on it. We’re out of balance. What else—how does a lot of the world power their
homes?
G: Coal?
P: Coal! Donald, have some coal-powered electricity. Give them the small-sized
red block with plugs and outlets on it. What else—how about we get all the
things we have?
G: Stores?
P: Industry, yeah! Give them the small-sized red block with smokestacks on
it. Now we’re terrible out of balance. The ocean doesn’t take up carbon quickly
enough to compensate, and there aren’t enough plants to take all of it in.
(The carbon balance activity can continue based on visitor interest. If the presenter
is comfortable discussing ocean acidification, they can remove the small-sized blue
block with sea life on it to show that carbon emissions will affect ocean life. If the
presenter is comfortable discussing deforestation, they can remove the small-sized
blue block with trees and plants on it to show that plants are able to take in less
carbon.)
Title: Climate Change
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Now we know how we could change the climate—change the composition of the
atmosphere.
 How does climate change? Change the composition of the
atmosphere.
P: Thanks to Donald and Bernie for helping us figure it out! Give them a round of
applause!
Climate Change
Let’s get back to our investigation. What’s left?
 Is our climate changing?
P: Hm. So, one thing we would need to know is whether the composition of our
atmosphere has changed, because that’s how climate changes. We know that
logically, burning fossil fuels is a process that should put carbon dioxide into the
atmosphere, and we also know there is no natural process to compensate for it.
Take off fossil fuels from balance—this is for later, if you wish to continue using
the balance throughout. But how can we see whether the composition of our
atmosphere has actually changed? Let’s go back to my science toolbox. What’s
this one? Pretend to dig through it and put up ‘Analyze Data’ tag.
G: Analyze data.
P: Awesome! Data is information, and we’ve been looking at a lot of information
already. We saw that map that showed carbon dioxide moving over the globe—but
where did we get that information?
 Carbon Tracker – Slide Scale 2001-2010
 Pause movie
P: Here is another map showing carbon. The red is high concentrations and blue
low, just like the other one, but this one also shows where we are getting this
information. Each of those white circles is the location of an instrument that
measures carbon dioxide. For the last fifty years, we have been using such
instruments, and we’ve seen that there is more carbon dioxide in the winter—when
we don’t have plants taking in carbon dioxide. If you wish, take the small-sized
blue block with plants and trees on it off the scale to demonstrate. But in
the spring, plants grow back again, so by summer they’re taking up lots of carbon
dioxide. Put small-sized blue block with plants and trees on it back on. But
we also found out something else. Watch the data as we move from 2001 to 2010.
 Play movie
P: What do you notice?
G: More red.
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P: More red. Carbon dioxide levels, though they fluctuate from season to season,
have been rising over time. Therefore, composition of our atmosphere has been
changing. In fact, the data shows us that carbon dioxide levels have been sharply
increasing for the past one hundred and fifty years, which correlates with exactly
when we began burning a lot of fossil fuels. But has this caused a change in
climate? Let’s analyze more data.
 Temperature Anomaly: Monthly
P: Remember, on this map white is the average temperature. Red is above
average and blue is below. What do you notice now?
G: More red.
P: More red, exactly. Temperatures have been higher than average over more and
more parts of the globe over the last thirty years or so, and this correlates with that
increase in carbon dioxide we saw. However, we said that climate was something
that took place over not only decades, but hundreds of years.
Use A Model
P: How can we tell whether this will continue to happen? Let’s go back to my
science toolbox. What’s this one? Pretend to dig through it and put up ‘Use a
model’ tag.
G: Use a model.
P: Great. A model is something scientists use to take the data we have to
extrapolate what could happen in the future. Although models can’t tell us what
will actually happen, a model is different than “just a guess”. Computer models can
use more data and variables than the human mind can process, and use all of that
information to build on what we currently know. We can then feed different
parameters into a model to figure out what climate will look like in the future.
 Climate Model: Temperature Change (Hadley a1b) - 1870 – 2100
 Pause
P: In this model, red is warmer temperatures and blue is cooler. This model starts
in the year 1870, so first we are looking at real data. As we move past the early
2000s, we are looking at projected temperatures. Let’s watch it to see what
happens.
 Play.
P: What happened?
G: It got warmer.
P: It got warmer. There are other models that use different parameters—
different growth in population or industry, which might affect different
levels of carbon dioxide, which might affect the temperature. However, all
Title: Climate Change
©2016 Pacific Science Center 12
the models show that as we continue to release carbon dioxide into the air,
climate will change. That was the final part of our investigation.
 Is our climate changing? Yes.
P: Now what do we do? Let’s go back to my science toolbox.
Sea Level Rise
P: What’s this one? Pretend to dig through it and put up ‘Construct an
Explanation’ tag.
G: Construct an explanation.
P: Yeah! By analyzing this data and using models, we’re able to construct
a pretty good explanation. We know humans are burning more fossil fuels
than ever before. We know that carbon dioxide levels are increasing. We
know that carbon dioxide traps heat. We know that the climate is
changing, so we can say with a good amount of certainty that by burning
fossil fuels we are a part of climate change. Now that we have that
explanation, we can use it to explain other things. For instance, has
anyone heard that the sea level may be rising?
G: Yes, no, this is a liberal hoax.
 Sea Level Trends 1993 - 2012
P: Once again we can use data to determine that over the last twenty
years, the sea level has been rising. On this map, the red areas are the
places where the sea level has risen the most and the blue is where the
sea level went down. As we move from 1993 to 2012, we can see that the
sea level is gradually moving up. Why might this be?
G: More water in the ocean, climate change, the ocean just does that, it
doesn’t matter.
P: We can use other data to answer this question. We know from looking
at satellite imagery that ice on land is melting; we know that when ice
melts it turns to water and that water on land runs off until it eventually
ends up in the ocean. We also know that ice melts as a result of warmer
temperatures. You can also prove in a lab that water expands due to
warmer temperatures. If we put all this data together, we can construct
another explanation: climate change is causing land ice to melt and water
to expand, which causes the sea level to rise. What would happen if the
sea level continued to rise?
G: Mass hysteria.
P: Yeah, beaches and lake front property could be affected, as well as
animals that rely on those environments and industries that rely on those
animals.
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Solutions
P: Okay, but what do we do about this? Does anyone have any ideas? If no
one has any ideas, remind them that fossil fuels are causing the problem.
G: Drive fewer cars, ride your bike, etc.
P: These are all great ideas, but this is a big problem. It affects the whole planet.
To really fix this, we’re going to need to get a lot of people involved. How can we
do that? One last time, I’m going to turn to science to answer my question. What’s
this one? Pretend to dig through it and put up ‘Communicate Information’
tag.
G: Communicate information.
P: Yeah! If we can communicate with enough people about climate
change, maybe we can make some large-scale solutions that fit the scale
of the problem. Instead of one person riding their bike, we can make
better bike lanes. Instead of just choosing not to drive your car, we can
promote electric cars. Instead of trying to conserve energy, we can
incentivize solar power. Does anyone have any other ideas for big, large
scale solutions?
G: More people can ride the bus.
P: So we definitely need community-level solutions to address the
problem, but we need to make sure we communicate correctly about what
is happening. This is actually one of the biggest problems scientists. They
have all of this data that shows what emits carbon dioxide, that carbon
levels are rising, that carbon traps heat, that temperatures are changing,
that water is expanding and land ice is melting. Scientists are trying to get
the word out, but the message gets garbled.
 Facebook
P: But more and more these days, the whole world is connected. This data
is showing us all the people in the world connected by Facebook
friendships. That’s a lot of people and a lot of communication happening,
and we know that human beings are innovators. They invent things all the
time. The more we know about climate change and the more information
that reaches everyone around us, the more we can do to address it.
Conclusion
P: That’s our show everyone; give yourselves a big round of applause!
G: Clap clap clap
P: I’ll be up here for the next little bit if you want to come chat or have any
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©2016 Pacific Science Center 14
questions. Thanks and have a great rest of your day!
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©2016 Pacific Science Center 15
Appendix
Resources
Specific:
 Carbon emissions:
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8c7vvAyqQvA
 Carbon cycle:
 http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/research/themes/carbon/
 Sea level rise:
 http://ocean.nationalgeographic.com/ocean/critical-issues-sea-level-rise/
General:
 Climate change:
o http://climate.nasa.gov/
o http://climateinterpreter.org
Next Generation Science Standards
Science Practices:
First Grade
o Use observations (firsthand or from media) to describe patterns in the
natural world in order to answer scientific questions. (1-ESS1-1)
Third Grade
o Construct an argument with evidence, data, and/or a model. (3-LS21)
Middle School
o Analyze and interpret data to provide evidence for phenomena. (MSLS2-1)
o Ask questions to identify and clarify evidence of an argument. (MSESS3-5)
High School
o Evaluate the evidence behind currently accepted explanations or
solutions to determine the merit of arguments. (HS-LS2-8)
Disciplinary Core Ideas:
Kindergarten
o Asking questions, making observations, and gathering information are
helpful in thinking about problems. (secondary to K-ESS3-2)
Fifth Grade
o Matter cycles between the air and soil and among plants, animals, and
microbes as these organisms live and die. Organisms obtain gases,
and water, from the environment and release waste matter (gas,
liquid, or solid) back into the environment. (5-LS2-1)
Middle School
o Human activities, such as the release of greenhouse gases from
burning fossil fuels, are major factors in the current rise in Earth’s
mean surface temperature (global warming). Reducing the level of
climate change and reducing human vulnerability to whatever climate
changes do occur depend on the understanding of climate science,
Title: Climate Change
©2016 Pacific Science Center 16
engineering capabilities, and other kinds of knowledge, such as
understanding human behavior and applying that knowledge wisely in
decisions and activities. (MS-ESS3-5)
High School
o Photosynthesis and cellular respiration are important components of
the carbon cycle, in which carbon is exchanged among the biosphere,
atmosphere, oceans, and geosphere through chemical, physical,
geological, and biological processes. (HS-LS2-5)
o Changes in the atmosphere due to human activity have increased
carbon dioxide concentrations and thus affect climate. (HS-ESS2-4)
o Current models predict that, although future regional climate changes
will be complex and varied, average global temperatures will continue
to rise. The outcomes predicted by global climate models strongly
depend on the amounts of human-generated greenhouse gases added
to the atmosphere each year and by the ways in which these gases are
absorbed by the ocean and biosphere. (secondary to HS-ESS3-6)
Crosscutting Concepts:
Middle School
o Small changes in one part of a system might cause large changes in
another part. (MS-LS2-4)
o Stability might be disturbed either by sudden events or gradual
changes that accumulate over time. (MS-ESS3-5)
o Scientific knowledge can describe the consequences of actions but
does not necessarily prescribe the decisions that society takes. (MSESS3-4)
High School
o Empirical evidence is required to differentiate between cause and
correlation and make claims about specific causes and effects. (HSLS2-8, HS-LS4-6)
o Changes and rates of change can be quantified and modeled over very
short or very long periods of time. Some system changes are
irreversible. (HS-ESS3-5)
o When investigating or describing a system, the boundaries and initial
conditions of the system need to be defined and their inputs and
outputs analyzed and described using models. (HS-ESS3-6)
Credits
Contributors:
Joy DeLyria, Science Interpretation Program (creator)
Holly Csiga, Presentation Supervisor (creator of the Carbon Balance demo)
Craig Matsuda, Exhibit Developer (carbon balance props)
Dr. Chris Sabine, PMEL Director (consulting on the Carbon Balance demo)
Lauren Slettedahl, Interpretation Programs Coordinator (props)
NNOCCI Study Circle (heat-trapping blanket metaphor, climate change solutions)
Works Cited

"Climate Interpreter." Climate Interpreter. 2014. Web.
<http://climateinterpreter.org/>.
Title: Climate Change
©2016 Pacific Science Center 17

"OCEANS & SEA LEVEL RISE." Climate Change and Sea Level Rise. 2010.
Web. <http://www.climate.org/topics/sea-level/>.
Title: Climate Change
©2016 Pacific Science Center 18