Scientific Debate and the Nature of Certainty part of Integrate:Program Design:InTeGrate Program Models:Gustavus Adolphus:Teaching Activities
Students discuss and learn about the nature of scientific knowledge in the context of scientific and non-scientific debates about climate change. This 50-minute module can be taught in a small- to very large-size introductory religion, philosophy or ethics class.

Unit 3: Climate Change and Food Security part of The Wicked Problem of Global Food Security
This unit applies a flipped classroom model. Students complete a self-study tutorial prior to attending class. Students are then asked work independently or in pairs to generate a time-aware climate change Web map ...

Unit 1: Ocean Introduction part of Ocean Sustainability
In this unit, students explore the role of ocean circulation in climate modification and bioproductivity. The activities require students to interpret the effect of horizontal and vertical seawater movement on heat ...

Unit 3: Oceans As Habitat: Sustaining Life in the Ocean part of Ocean Sustainability
Students will be able to identify the functional roles that organisms play in ocean ecosystems. How do human-induced changes in ocean conditions affect biodiversity, and thereby the health and resilience of a coral ...

Unit 2: Ocean Conditions: Ancient to Modern part of Ocean Sustainability
Students will be provided with seawater pH and carbon dioxide concentration (pCO2) data spanning as far back as 1850. They will describe trends in pH, pCO2 and atmospheric CO2 concentration, outline why these ...

Unit 4: Earth's radiation balance - a map and graph-based jigsaw part of Earths Thermostat
In this two-day activity spanning Units 4 and 5, students analyze spatial variation in climate through a map-based jigsaw exploration of NASA's Clouds and Earth's Radiant Energy Systems (CERES) Energy ...

Unit 5: Circulation in the atmosphere - a map and cross section based jigsaw part of Earths Thermostat
In this optional activity, students analyze maps of wind patterns from three levels in the atmosphere in order to infer global atmospheric circulation patterns and their role in balancing the radiation budget they ...

Unit 3: Energy Flows and Feedback Processes part of Earths Thermostat
In this unit, we use energy flows within the climate system to introduce climate feedbacks and system diagrams. The class session uses an interactive lecture approach having students work on multiple tasks ...

Unit 5: Balancing the Radiation Budget: A Jigsaw Exploration of the Global Climate System (Part 2) part of Earths Thermostat
In this two-day activity spanning Units 4 and 5, students analyze spatial variation in climate through a map-based jigsaw exploration of NASA's Clouds and Earth's Radiant Energy Systems (CERES) Energy ...

Unit 6: Capstone: A modern catastrophic volcanic eruption? part of Earths Thermostat
This unit is the module's capstone project: developing a conceptual model of the climatic and societal effects of a catastrophic volcanic eruption occurring in modern times. Through independent research and ...

Unit 1: Energy, Space, and Earth's Effective Temperature part of Earths Thermostat
This unit is designed to engage students by introducing them to patterns in recent climate and investigating possible reasons for recent changes. Students work in small groups to plot and analyze real-world ...

Unit 2: Earth's Atmosphere and Its Influence on Temperature part of Earths Thermostat
This unit investigates the role of the atmosphere on incoming solar and outgoing terrestrial radiation and analyzes modern trends in greenhouse gas concentrations. Students first investigate radiation spectra to ...

Unit 4: Fossil Fuel Formation part of Carbon, Climate, and Energy Resources
Students will explore various aspects of fossil fuels by examining the various ranks of coal and the processes by which coal, oil, and natural gas form.

Unit 6: Moving Forward: Evaluating Impacts of Modern-day Proposals Affecting the Carbon-cycle and Climate part of Carbon, Climate, and Energy Resources
In this unit, students will review mock proposals that deal with some aspect of the role of carbon in the environment. Each proposal is based on actual actions proposed to mitigate some aspect of carbon consumption ...

Unit 3: Geologic Record of Past Climate part of Carbon, Climate, and Energy Resources
Students will be introduced to a few of the different methods used in paleoclimatology, including isotopic ratios as paleotemperature proxies. They will investigate the greenhouse gas connections of two ancient ...

Unit 5: Modern CO2 Accumulation part of Carbon, Climate, and Energy Resources
Students will examine data that record the modern increase in carbon dioxide concentrations and the associated increase in average temperatures, and they will investigate the effects of carbon dioxide on various ...

Unit 1: Identifying Misconceptions & Logical Fallacies part of Carbon, Climate, and Energy Resources
Students will identify how they, as individuals, think about climate science and explore common perceptions and misconceptions that exist about climate science. The activities within this unit incorporate ...

Unit 2: The Carbon Cycle part of Carbon, Climate, and Energy Resources
Students will explore the different aspects of the carbon cycle on Earth. This includes the original source of all the carbon on our planet, the near ubiquity of carbon, the six principle reservoirs of carbon in ...

Modeling Rare Plant Distributions Using ArcGIS part of Teach the Earth:Teaching Activities
In this activity, students work with rare plant occurrence data from the Nature Reserve of Orange County, California to create species distribution maps in ArcGIS. Students are given shapefiles of species ...

Did Early Farmers Alter Climate? part of Teach the Earth:Teaching Activities
The overarching goal of this exercise is for students to explore the early anthropogenic hypothesis, which claims that early agriculture had a substantial impact on greenhouse gases and global climate thousands of ...