* Your assessment is very important for improving the workof artificial intelligence, which forms the content of this project
Download Writing and Thinking about Global Warming
Mitigation of global warming in Australia wikipedia , lookup
Climate change in the Arctic wikipedia , lookup
Effects of global warming on human health wikipedia , lookup
Myron Ebell wikipedia , lookup
Economics of global warming wikipedia , lookup
Climate change adaptation wikipedia , lookup
Climate engineering wikipedia , lookup
Soon and Baliunas controversy wikipedia , lookup
Citizens' Climate Lobby wikipedia , lookup
Climate sensitivity wikipedia , lookup
Climate change and agriculture wikipedia , lookup
Michael E. Mann wikipedia , lookup
Climate change in Tuvalu wikipedia , lookup
General circulation model wikipedia , lookup
Climate change denial wikipedia , lookup
Climate governance wikipedia , lookup
Climatic Research Unit email controversy wikipedia , lookup
Physical impacts of climate change wikipedia , lookup
Global warming controversy wikipedia , lookup
Effects of global warming wikipedia , lookup
Fred Singer wikipedia , lookup
Climate change in the United States wikipedia , lookup
Effects of global warming on humans wikipedia , lookup
Climate change and poverty wikipedia , lookup
North Report wikipedia , lookup
Solar radiation management wikipedia , lookup
Global warming wikipedia , lookup
Instrumental temperature record wikipedia , lookup
Global warming hiatus wikipedia , lookup
Attribution of recent climate change wikipedia , lookup
Media coverage of global warming wikipedia , lookup
Politics of global warming wikipedia , lookup
Scientific opinion on climate change wikipedia , lookup
Effects of global warming on Australia wikipedia , lookup
Climate change feedback wikipedia , lookup
Climate change, industry and society wikipedia , lookup
IPCC Fourth Assessment Report wikipedia , lookup
Surveys of scientists' views on climate change wikipedia , lookup
Why Should We Care? Writing and Thinking About Global Warming Project Overview College Writing students will visit several websites that gather and track real-time, nearreal-time, and historical climate and natural data around the world in order to gain information regarding some aspect of climate change (in the atmosphere, biosphere, hydrosphere, etc). Some data appears in the form of graphs, and some of it appears as images (of ice coverage in the Arctic, for example). Students will then read and respond to a climate weblog. In addition to discovering some of the widely varied resources on the internet and learning how to use that information, they will also become familiar with reading/responding to weblogs. This RWLO will help them develop their thinking for an essay assignment based on An Inconvenient Truth. (Note: The essay asks them to take a position regarding global warming, explaining whether this issue should be a priority in their lives and communities, or not, and why. Additional websites—tracking the development and migration of insect-borne disease, and hunger, for example—could be used accessed to expand research, if that were an appropriate goal for the class.) 1 Student Learning Objectives For this RWLO, the student will be able to: Visit websites with up-to-the-minute collected news articles, as well as real-time, near real-time, and archived data Briefly describe one graph with real-time or near-real time data Briefly summarize one recent news article Submit at least one entry on a climate blog 2 Procedure Time: Approximately 50 minutes in lab Materials: Computers with internet access Prerequisites: Ability to type and use the internet Implementation: This RWLO is best assigned after the first half of the semester, when students will be familiar enough with the technology to be able to work independently. This assignment can be used either in the College Writing lab classroom, or as homework. Steps: 1. In class, hand out assignment and discuss instructions with students 2. If there is internet access and a projection system, visit the two primary websites (www.climateark.org/news and www.exploratorium.edu/climate work well as examples of two different kinds of resources) to demonstrate how to locate articles and data sources. Then visit the weblog at www.climateark.org/blog to demonstrate how to find and make entries. 3. Remind students to take their time and indulge their curiosity exploring various parts of these sites before writing their descriptions, summaries, and blog entries. 4. Remind students their assignment is not complete until they have received an email back from their instructor. 3 Content Material Student Directions: Go to the website www.exploratorium.edu/climate. After reading the first page, choose a tab (atmosphere, hydrosphere, cryosphere, biosphere) that most interests you and click on it. (Alternately, click on each tab, scan through to see what you find most interesting.) Explore, paying particular attention to graphs that are identified as “near real time data” or short-term data. Write a brief description of the graph or information that most caught your attention. Include the title of the graph and the link to it. What information was the graph conveying? What was most compelling, or surprising or interesting about it? Go to the website www.climateark.org. Click on the left column, “Climate News,“ a continuously updated news service. Find an article on a topic of interest for you (political— local, national, global—scientific, social, and so on), and read it. Write a brief summary of that article, following the format below: identify the author(s) and title of the work. write an introductory statement that summarizes the main point of the entire piece provide the reader with a general understanding of the author’s main idea and significant supporting points Remember: you are explaining the ideas of the author in the reading being summarized—summaries should never include your own thoughts or feelings about the reading Go to www.climateark.org/blog. Read several entries, as well as reader responses. Write a civil, substantive response (that is, NOT a summary, NOT a “Yeah, me too” but something thoughtful that you think or feel about what you’ve read) and post it on the blog. Send an email to your instructor with both summaries included (either as attachments or copied and pasted into the text of the email), as well as a link to your blog comment. Check email to see that instructor has replied (and received all required materials). 4 Referenced URLs: The Exploratorium Global Climate Change Research Explorer www.exploratorium.edu/climate The Climate Change and Global Warming Portal: including a continuous news scanning service and climate blog. www.climateark.org 5 Assessment Evaluation Rubric: Needs Revision Adequate Excellent Graph Description (must include title, link, description) News Summary (must include publication date, news source, author, title, main idea, supporting points) Blog entry (must be relevant, substantive and civil) Email to instructor Needs Revision: missing one or more components in description above Adequate: meets minimal requirements listed above Excellent: in addition to meeting all minimal requirements, student work is attractively presented using MLA formatting. 6 Links to Course Competencies This RWLO could be applied in the following courses: LN090, WR100, EN101, and others. Specifically, this RWLO meets the following course (and college) competencies: critical thinking and reading composing academic writing (summary, description) research understanding the interdependence of the countries/cultures of the world (graduation competency) 7 Supplementary Resources Al Gore’s “Inconvenient Truth” Movie: Fact or Hype? http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/05/060524-globalwarming.html NOAA Realtime and Retrospective Arctic data http://asl.arctic.noaa.gov/data.htm World View of Global Warming: Global warming at the extremes of the earth: habitats and cultures everywhere react to climate’s rapid changes. http://www.worldviewofglobalwarming.org/pages/risingseas.html Global Warming Program/Union of Concerned Scientists www.ucsusa.org/global_warming/ 8 Recommendations Recommendations for Integration: This RWLO works well as a crossdisciplinary module for use in a writing classroom. It was also designed to accompany our college’s OneBook project this semester, focused on An Inconvenient Truth, which instructors in many disciplines are using in their courses. Back-up: If internet access is down, it would be possible to print out and copy student instructions, and to choose an article (to the instructor’s taste!) in advance from www.climateark.org/news, then asking students to summarize that article in class. If there are no computers in class, all of the above would still work; they would simply need to hand-write the summary. The graph description and weblog entry section would need to be completed as homework, since they require a computer with a live internet connection. 9