Instructor Stories and Adaptations

These resources describe how the module was adapted for use in different settings. We hope these stories inspire your own use of the module and give you insight into how to adapt the materials for your classroom.

Callan Bentley: Carbon, Climate, and Energy Resources at Northern Virginia Community College.
I piloted the module over two weeks in an introductory physical geology course with 52 students in a lecture hall and laboratory. Most of the students were enrolled in the course to satisfy their liberal arts core curriculum requirement, though there were a few geology "majors" in the group as well. The entire module was adapted to the course setting, with one unit per class meeting over the two weeks (Units 2 and 5 were taught during the slightly longer lab periods; the other units were taught during lecture).

Peter Berquist: Carbon, Climate, and Energy Resources at Thomas Nelson Community College.
This module was piloted over three weeks in a physical geology lecture and lab course with ~ 20 students. Most students enrolled in this course to satisfy the lab science requirement for an associate's degree. The units were divided among 1.5-hr lecture and 3-hr lab sessions.

Pamela Gore: Carbon, Climate, and Energy Resources at Perimeter College, Georgia State University (formerly Georgia Perimeter College).
This module was used in an environmental science laboratory course, with two modules per weekly lab session for three weeks, in a class of 20 students working at tables of four. Units 1 and 2 were covered in the first week, Units 3 and 4 in the second week, and Units 5 and 6 were covered in the third week. The students included dual enrollment high school students, traditional college-age students, and working mature adults. All or most of the students were non-science majors, enrolled in the course to satisfy a laboratory science core curriculum requirement for an sssociate's degree. The entire module was adapted to the course setting, including the optional activities. Laboratory classes were two hours and 45 minutes in length.

Additional Instructor Stories

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Judi Roux: BIOL 1001: Biology and Society at University of Minnesota Duluth
Judi Roux, University of Minnesota-Duluth
Even though Biology and Society has a large student enrollment, I prefer that students are actively engaged with the course topics and with each other rather than always listening to a PowerPoint lecture. At the beginning of the semester, students were assigned to teams of four using the CATME Team-maker surveys at http://info.catme.org/ Students worked in these teams during lab activities and specific classroom activities. With my fall course, I began to implement case studies to introduce and engage students with required topics, so I appreciated that case studies were available for certain activities within the modules.

Molly Redmond: Using InTeGrate Materials in Biology 3144 (Ecology) at UNC Charlotte
Molly Redmond, University of North Carolina at Charlotte
Teaching the Carbon Cycle, Climate Change, and Feedback Loops in Introductory Ecology I used material from the Carbon, Climate and Energy Resources Module and the Changing Biosphere Module, along with some inspiration from the Systems Thinking Module, in my intro Ecology class. This a required core class for Biology majors at UNCC and consists largely of juniors and seniors, but most students have little to no background in environmental science or ecology. I taught two sections of this class, each section had 76 students and met twice a week for 75 minutes. I did the activities in both sections. Our classroom was designed for active learning, with 76 desks on wheels. These desks can face forward during the lecture portion of the class or be moved into groups for activities. This flexible arrangement works very well for my class, which is mix of traditional lecture, frequent clicker questions, and longer group activities. The room has five projectors, so students can see slides on all walls of the room. The one downside is that the room is so full of desks, it's challenging for me to move around the classroom and nearly impossible for the students to move around out of their desks. I modified the InTeGrate materials to suit the physical structure of the classroom and my relatively large (but not huge) classes.

Ellen Wisner: Using InTeGrate Materials in General Biology II at University of North Carolina at Charlotte
Ellen Wisner, University of North Carolina at Charlotte
I used material from three different Integrate modules in my General Biology II course. This is the second biology course taken by majors at UNCC, and covers evolution, animal and plant structure and function, and ecology. As a part of the course students do a service learning project related to sustainability. These modules helped to incorporate more discussion of topics related to sustainability in the course, and helped to better link their service learning project to the material covered during class.

Also Related to Carbon, Climate, and Energy Resources

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Integrating Energy, Earth and Environmental Education
May 6 2019 As the world grapples with climate change, educators have an increased responsibility to help their students learn about energy, energy systems, and the energy economy. This webinar introduces Energy, Earth and Environmental Education (E4) – an emerging approach informs about energy solutions to climate change. David Blockstein (AESS) will introduce E4 and present opportunities to learn more about E4. Teresa Sabol Spezio (Pitzer College) will discuss pedagogy involved applying the complexity of energy systems so students have a way to compare and evaluate energy sources. Cornelia Colijn (University of Pennsylvania) will discuss creation of graduate programs in energy.

Teaching the Impacts of Human Carbon Emissions on the Atmosphere, Oceans, and Economy
Nov 17 2016 Next Webinar Biosphere and Critical Zone Wednesday, November 30th 10:00 am PT | 11:00 am MT | 12:00 pm CT | 1:00 pm ET Thursday, November 17th 10:00 am PT | 11:00 am MT | 12:00 pm CT | 1:00 pm ET Presenters: ...