Common Questions about Teaching with Climate Models - A summary of Tuesday's discussion

• Trying to get students to understand the process of science might help students to understand the nature of science and the importance of experimentation.
• Introduce modeling on a simple level first (e.g. energy balance model is a simple climate model). Then scaffold learning to get them to apply concepts learned from the basic model to more complex models. Even some long-time users of GCM modeling know all the inner workings of the model.
• Speaking from experience with grad students and professionals working with a variety of science backgrounds/levels of scientific knowledge, the use of participatory conceptual modeling processes may be helpful. In this case, if you're teaching a class, you can provide students with an overview of systems thinking (e.g. what is a system?) then start with a simple energy balance/budget model. Get students to think about the system and have them work together to develop a simple concept map of the energy balance model -- have them draw out how the basic components fit together on the blackboard. Then, scaffold this learning and apply it to a global level or scale.
• Possibility of using Excel to have students plug in simple equations. Tie these together to show how models function. This doesn't need to be a climate model, it could start as a more real-world example such as calculating the efficiency of walking to class or driving to class, parking, and walking the remainder of the way; then this idea could be related to how climate models work. An example of a climate model that uses this approach is the Modeling Early Earth Climate with GEEBITT activity.
• L.F. Richardson's idea of a "Forecast Factory" could also be useful to demonstrate how models are used to predict weather. How Do We Predict Weather and Climate? , from the University of Reading Meteorolgy Department and Walker Institute for Climate Research, is an activity based on the Richardson forecast factory that asks students to imagine themselves as "human computers" in a forecast factory. The aim of the activity was to introduce students to the ways in which numerical weather forecasts are made using simple equations. Teacher's notes and handouts are provided.

• Have them read the IPCC summary of policy makers - this is written in a language that most students can understand.
• It's interesting that climate models can recreate internal variability in the atmosphere (e.g. El Nino and La Nina events) using current inputs. The fact that they are creating these events may strengthen the argument that they are pretty accurate and credible.

• Key difference is forecasts - model output is not a forecast.