Initial Publication Date: November 6, 2019
Bruce Douglas: Using Understanding Our Changing Climate in EAS A476 CLIMATE CHANGE SCIENCE at Indiana University-Bloomington
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Provenance: Bruce Douglas (Indiana University)
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About this Course
Upper division course intended for majors within the department as well as students from other science majors.
13
students
Three 50 minute lecture sessions
Syllabus for EAS A476 Climate Change Science (Microsoft Word 2007 (.docx) 25kB Nov4 19)
Evidence for and theories of climate change over a range of time scales. Sources of natural climate forcing are presented, historical evolution of climate change is quantified, and model tools and climate projections are presented along with analyses of climate change impacts
- Summarize how climate proxy data explains Earth's past climate variations
- Describe how Earth's climate system functions in present day
- Assess the current state of climate change science literatureEssential questions addressed in this course include:
- How do we know that Earth's climate has changed in the past?
- What is happening in the climate system now, and what is our best scientific evidence that explains why?
- What is the proper way to invoke past evidence as we try predict future outcomes?
The Understanding Our Changing Climate module provided a deep plunge into sea level change, a subject matter commonly discussed with only passing details of the real societal impact. The GETSI module was used within a climate change science course that covered a traditional range of topics that provided a general framework for the module. The module was taught over a two-week interval following the mid-term exam and provided a change in the routine of the course. The material was presented by a guest faculty member as the module was not part of the normal topics included in the course.
The change in classroom routine also allowed for extensive time to be dedicated to the plotting, analysis and interpretation of a range of geodetic data that provided complementary views of ice mass loss from the Greenland ice sheet.
The time spent working on this module allowed the students to master the plotting, analysis and interpretation of geodetic data.
My Experience Teaching with GETSI Materials
The module was used essentially as designed with only minor modifications to address the relatively short class meeting times. With only limited class time more of the work had to be done outside of class. This was addressed by making sure the students knew how to approach each of the required calculations or plots so they would be able to work independently to complete each of the units.
Relationship of GETSI Materials to my Course
As a result of course scheduling, the Understanding Our Changing Climate module was used as an insert into a course being taught by another faculty member from the same department. The course material in the course titled Climate Change Science provided an excellent survey of appropriate background material (e.g. global circulation patterns, temperature distributions, Milankovitch Cycles and solar radiation and wavelengths, El, Nino, sunspots, aerosols, albedo and land use, and the Hydrologic Cycle) within which to teach the Changing Climate module. The students spent 9 weeks on the regularly scheduled material followed by a mid-term exam. At this point the next two weeks were spent working through the Changing Climate module. The Stakeholder report that is the culmination of unit 5 was assigned to be turned in during the last week of the semester. This two-week interval coincided with the material being covered in the normal schedule of the course that focused on various portions of IPCC Reports.
Unit 1
- Unit 1 was broken into two parts as is designed. The first was a homework assignment that was to be completed prior to the first class meeting which was used to discuss how to complete a stakeholder analysis. This allowed the class time to be used to summarize the stakeholder table and plot of influence/power vs interest. The students were reminded that they would need to continue to think about this as the other units were completed since they would be writing a report on their stakeholder analysis as part of unit 5.
Unit 2
- Unit 2 was used as designed with the note that all of the calculations and plots were discussed during the class time and examples of each worked through so the students could complete the unit outside of class.
Unit 3
- Unit 3 followed the same procedure as used for Unit 2.
Unit 4
- Unit 4 required the most help for a majority of the students, especially to bring them up to speed on the detrending calculations. This also served as a reminder that unless a standard set of computers with the same software packages are going to be available, there is potentially going to be a wide range of platforms and software versions that will be in use by the student. This can create an array of problems in trying to figure out how to work with the various systems. The one thing that was different from the design of the unit was the inability to have students work in teams to reduce the amount of plotting that needed to be completed by each individual. This was a result of not having sufficiently long period of time for the students to work in groups. As a result of my experiences and that of my co-author, we have modified both the data sets and unit 4 to include examples of the detrending calculations and plots as options for distribution to the students as well as a version that does not include the detrending portions of the unit.
Unit 5
- Unit 5 was assigned to be completed over a two-week period that spanned the final part of the semester. The report was to be turned in at the end of the final week of classes. The format of the report has also be revised and simplified to reduce some points of ambiguity.
Assessments
The assessments prepared for the five units were used as they are found on the website. In general, they worked well given the material submitted by the students. Because of the logistics of teaching the module as a guest faculty member in a course being taught by another faculty member, I had limited contact with the students to hear from them directly. I was not informed of any problems by my colleague so I am assuming that the students thought the assessments were fair.
Outcomes
There were three main goals for the module and for the most part they were successfully met. The first was to expose the students to an array of geodetic data sets for them to explore and interpret while still relatively early in their academic/professional journeys. The second was to increase their quantitative skills with respect to time series data sets and how the display and analysis of these data sets can be enhanced with use of various techniques. The third was to have them appreciate the impact of sea level changes that is tied to the location and economic status of people from across the globe. Based on the student work submitted these goals were met by all of the students.
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