Bruce Douglas: Using Understanding Our Changing Climate in EAS A476 CLIMATE CHANGE SCIENCE at Indiana University-Bloomington

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.

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.

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.