Download Climate Change

Hands on Climate Change
Explorations in the Classroom
MEES
March 2, 2011
Marie Silver [email protected]
Rob Snyder [email protected]
STEM Education Institute
University of Massachusetts Amherst
A wide range of Climate Change Education
curriculum materials were developed
for International Polar Year Summer
Institutes at UMass Amherst.
They are available at
http://umassk12.net/ipy
Climate Change Education developed for the IPY summer
Institutes provides opportunities for students to:
1. Develop Spatial Thinking
 Interpret maps, diagrams, graphs, charts, animations
and models.
2. Develop Temporal Thinking
 Understand how the history of climate change is
discovered and future changes predicted.
3. Understand Earth as a Complex System
 Explore feedbacks that occur between and among
components of Earth’s Climate System.
4. Learn in the Field
 Collect and analyze real time data and observations.
How Geoscientists Think and Learn, Kastens et al., EOS,Transactions,
American Geophysical Union; August 4, 2009, p. 265
IPY Curriculum Materials on the web site include:
• Student activity documents.
• Teacher’s guides that include related state and
national science learning standards.
• PowerPoint presentations that accompany many
of the activities.
• PowerPoint presentations by climate researched
at UMass Amherst and by guest climate
researchers.
• Lists of sources of materials for activities.
• References to webs sites and literature.
Sets of activities available today focus on
three aspects of climate change.
• Earth’s Albedo: Sunlight is either absorbed
or reflected from Earth’s surface
• Carbon Dioxide Measurements: CO2 can
be measured and its pathways can be
simulated.
• Changes in Sea Level: Melting land and
sea ice will have different impacts on
coastal lands as sea levels rise.
Paints trays can be used to demonstrate the
impacts of rising sea levels.
Different parts of the
world will experience a
variety of changes in
sea level.
Source: http://www.climate.org/topics/sea-level/index.html#sealevelrise
In one activity you can compare your CO2 measurements
with measurements obtained from ice core data.
In another activity, you can learn how a light meter
can be used to measure albedo.
Snow cover
affects Earth’s
albedo.
http://www.nohrsc.noaa.gov/nsa/index.html?region=National
Explore some of the IPY
activities at the tables.