Download Global Climate Change Lesson Plans By Summer Scarlatelli

Global Climate Change Lesson Plans
By Summer Scarlatelli
Objectives:
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Students will be able to understand how the Earth is warming through natural occurrences like
the carbon cycle and also unnaturally through human activities.
Students will be able to understand the concept of the greenhouse effect and how it can be
altered by humans.
Through investigation, students will be able to see the implications that global warming can
have upon our earth.
Through research and class participation students will be able to understand how each of earths
sphere is affected by global climate change and how climate change can affect each and all of
the spheres.
Curriculum and Instructional Strategy:
1.) Have students take a “Pre-test” survey and grade themselves on how much they think they
know about global climate change and the terminology that encompasses it. They will rate
themselves 4 – 0, four feeling they know a lot though zero meaning they have absolutely no
clue. They questions will look like the following.
a. How well do you think you understand global warming?
b. Do you feel that you understand how Earth’s climate has changed over time?
c. Do you think you can identify earth’s four spheres and what they are comprised of?
d. Do you think you can describe how the greenhouse effect works?
e. Do you think you can name at least five possible results of global warming?
f. Do you think you could demonstrate how greenhouse gasses keep the earth pleasant to
live in?
g. How well do you think you understand global warming effect on Earth’s ice and the
animals that are dependent upon them?
2.) Hook
a. “Did you know that Antarctica holds 91% of the world’s ice while Greenland holds 8%,
the remaining 1% is found in icebergs. Do you think the melting of land ice or melting
sea ice will cause sea level to raise the most?”
b. Fact retrieved from the Center for Remote Sensing of Ice Sheets
c. Demonstrate fact from above
i. Fill cup one half full of ice and then fill the rest with water
1. This represents the sea ice. The water level will lower because when
water is frozen it expands and when it melts it loses volume.
ii. Fill cup two completely full and overflowing with ice and then fill the glass with
water.
1. This represents land ice and when the ice melts, the water level rises.
3.)
4.)
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d. “What do you then think could cause land ice to melt”?
Review Vocabulary
a. Global warming, global climate change, greenhouse effect, fossil fuels, carbon cycle,
biosphere, lithosphere, hydrosphere and atmosphere.
Show the movie an Inconvenient Truth
a. Have students answer the following questions from the movie. * The following
questions were adapted from the teacher resource manual found on the movies
website.
1. Describe the process of global warming
2. How is carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere naturally and
unnaturally?
3. How do we see evidence of global warming in ice sheets, especially
glaciers?
4. Al Gore shows a graph that dates back 650,000 years. Why does he go
back so far and what does this graph discuss?
5. Describe the cyclical theory. How does Gore challenge this theory?
6. Graph shows a graph from the 1860’s, what does it show? What impact
is this having on the oceans temperature range?
7. Global warming has an effect on precipitation and on the distribution on
precipitation. What is this about and why is this a problem?
8. What is happening to the ice in the Arctic? What is the physical
evidence that this is happening?
9. If sea ice melts, it will not cause any rise, but if land ice does, it will.
How did we demonstrate this earlier in class and how is the melting of
sea ice helping the melting land ice? (Think back to demonstration)
10. What has happened to the human population recently and why is this a
problem?
11. What does the following mean? “Old habitats plus new technology lead
to predictable consequences, while old habitats and new technology
lead to dramatically altered consequences?”
12. Gore refers to an illustration showing gold in one tray of a scale and the
earth in the other. Why does he say that this is a false choice?
b. For extra credit, ask if any of the students can find information on how the statistics
have changed since the movie was made in 2006, and share their findings with the class.
Have students participate in the lab: “The Greenhouse Effect in a Jar” found at
http://sln.fi.edu/tfi/activity/earth/earth-5.html
Student Research and presentation
a. Split students into four sphere and have each group research how their sphere can
affect global climate change and how global climate change can affect their sphere.
b. Have each group/sphere create a catalogue with each page representing a cause or
effect of global climate change on their respective spheres. Each page should include
pictures either hand drawn or from a magazine and typed information. Each page
should be laminated with a piece of magnet taped to the back of each page.
c. Each group will get up in front of the class and present their findings through showing
their catalogue.
7.) Class participation
a. Each group should select a leader to be their board representative. At the blackboard
and as a class, students will make large chains of events that incorporate each sphere
and the event of global climate change. Essentially they will put pieces of their
catalogues together to form chains, like putting pieces of a puzzle together.
8.) Have each student retake “Pre-Test” survey and compare their results.
a. Include the following questions
i. Has your opinion on global warming changed?
ii. Do you believe in global warming more or less than before the lesson was
given? Why or why not?
Teacher Rubric:
1.) The teacher will evaluate the student’s depth of understanding of global climate and class
participation through the following rubric. Each category will be graded on a four to zeros scale,
four meaning the student became an expert in the area while a zero means that student did not
participate in activity or did not pay attention
a. Knowledge of climate change
i. The student can describe verbally or visually how global warming is occurring.
ii. The student can identify how global warming can affect Earth’s sea and land ice
and the repercussion of it.
iii. The student can describe how climate change is a natural cycle in Earth’s
history.
iv. The student can identify how carbon is released into the atmosphere naturally
and through human actions and how the rise in human population is affecting
this.
v. The student can describe how the release of excess carbon dioxide into the
atmosphere can have a negative impact on earth.
b. Participation in Lab
i. The student actively participated in lab.
ii. The student was able to identify the components of the greenhouse effect.
iii. The student was able to identify and describe how the greenhouse effect works
and keeps earth at a relatively comfortable temperature.
c. Knowledge on Spheres
i. The student can identify earth’s four spheres.
ii. The student is able to describe each of Earth’s four spheres.
iii. The student is able to identify how global climate change is affecting each
sphere and vice-versa.
iv. The student is able to describe a series of events that correlates all four spheres
to the event of global climate change.
d. Participation in Sphere Report
i. The student helped their group research their respective sphere
ii. Student was able to help group find pictures to comprise sphere catalogue.
iii. The student was able to help their class mates make connections between
earths spheres and global climate change.
Individual Reflection
I really did not know much about global climate change and global warming before I started this
project. I actually think that this is kind of pathetic because I teach ninth grade earth science and
eleventh grade environmental science. I have always been hesitant to talk about the topic because of
my severe lack of knowledge and over the past three years I have found myself relying on the movie “An
Inconvenient Truth” to explain it to them. So in essence it was sort of a gift that I had to do this
assignment so I was forced to understand the topic. I think that I learned the most factual information
from putting chains together and doing research for the ESS Analysis while I think I learned how to
correlate global climate change the most to teaching from putting the lesson plans together. I
Through in depth research and creating the lesson plans, my overall knowledge on the topic
drastically improved. I know that I keep seeing commercials about ice sheets and glaciers melting at an
alarming rate (knowing that this is where a majority of our fresh water is stored) and polar bears and
walrus’s dying because their habitat is being lost. I knew that this could lead to a rise in sea level but I
never knew how. After actually using the cups of ice to demonstrate the melting of sea ice and land I
was actually able to visualize the process and it became a lot easier to understand. I have also tried to
teach my students about the greenhouse effect before and had failed miserable. I personally
understand the science involved in it but the whole thing really never “clicked” in my brain until I did the
“Greenhouse in a Jar.” I think by combining the science and visualization, teaching the subject will
become a lot easier. Another piece of information that I learned over this process is how large volcanic
eruptions cause a decline in global temperature not a rise. This could be a good hook and correlation to
global climate change when I start the section on volcanoes with my ninth graders next week.
The movie “An Inconvenient Truth” also taught me a lot about global warming. I have always
shown the video to my students in class however I have never done more than have them answer a
video worksheet and hoped they understood the information. For this lesson plan I actually spent time
watching the video on my own and created questions that I really wanted them to think about. I also
made sure that I stopped during key points in the video and lead a group discussion based on these key
points. This made the topic flow really well and it was good to have them look not only at the science
part of global warming but how politics is involved and how they themselves can be affected by this
topic. I really think that I took a lot away from this Global Climate Change Module and from this day on,
I vow to never cheat my students out of knowledge on such an important and relevant topic.
Peer Review – Sarah Hoppler
Hi Summer,
I found looking at your lesson plan extremely helpful while working on my own, especially in
terms of organization and the rubric. Looking at the rubric we will be graded with, I think you
should do very well! I liked your ice demonstration "hook" as well as the jar experiment- both
hands-on activities should keep students engaged in the lesson and provide a visualization for
relatively hard to understand abstract concepts. You integrate different scientific disciplines
(life, earth, physical) in the ESS/jigsaw portion of your lesson, as well as integrate non-science
disciplines, like political science, while watching Inconvenient Truth. Finally, you provided a very
clear rubric. My only suggestions relate to typos/grammar mistakes probably from typing fast:
Make sure you capitalize "Earth" when referring to the planet (not dirt). In Objectives bullet 4:
make sphere plural- each of Earth's spheres. In the rubric, section a, iii, change naturally to
natural. That’s all!
Sorry I didn't have any more pointers, but you probably don't feel like changing much at this
point anyway!