The Climate Change pcMEL

Below are links to resources that will help students use the Climate Change pcMEL and learn more about fundamental scientific principles related to climate and weather.

Overview

This article provides an provides an overview of the MEL diagram activities, using the Climate Change pcMEL as an example.

Beyond the Controversy (Acrobat (PDF) 667kB Jun4 18)

Next Generation Science Standards Performance Expectations

HS-ESS3-5: Earth and Human Activity

• Analyze geoscience data and the results from global climate models to make an evidence-based forecast of the current rate of global or regional climate change and associated future impacts to Earth systems.

HS-ESS3-4: Earth and Human Activity

• Evaluate or refine a technological solution that reduces impacts of human activities on natural systems.

The Models

Model A: Climate change is caused by humans who are releasing gases into the atmosphere.
Model B: Climate change is caused by increasing amounts of energy released from the Sun.

Student Handouts

• Climate Change Model Plausibility Ratings (Acrobat (PDF) 40kB Jun24 24)
• Climate Change MEL – Diagram (Acrobat (PDF) 109kB Jun24 24)
• Explanation Task (Acrobat (PDF) 52kB May6 24)

Lines of Evidence

Evidence #1: Atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations have been rising for the past 50 years. Human activities have led to greater releases of greenhouse gases. Temperatures have also been rising during these past 50 years.
Evidence #2: Solar activity has decreased since 1970. Lower activity means that Earth has received less of the Sun's energy. But, Earth's temperature has continued to rise.
Evidence #3: Satellites are measuring that more of Earth's energy is being absorbed by greenhouse gases.
Evidence #4: Increases and decreases in global temperatures closely matched increases and decreases in solar activity before the industrial revolution.

Student Handouts

• Climate Change MEL – Evidence Texts BW (Acrobat (PDF) 1.1MB Jun24 24)
• Climate Change MEL – Evidence Texts Color (Acrobat (PDF) 1.8MB Jun24 24)

Lateral Reading (LR) Resources

What does it mean for a source to be credible? Why should we investigate whether a source is credible before we read it? How do we decide whether online sources are credible? Use lateral reading to find out.

Use lateral reading to evaluate the credibility of two sources related to climate change.

This LR Activity connects to Evidence #2 above: Solar activity has decreased since 1970. Lower activity means that Earth has received less of the Sun's energy. But, Earth's temperature has continued to rise.

Use the LR Guiding Questions to evaluate the credibility of each source.

• LR Guiding Questions (Acrobat (PDF) 28kB Jun8 23)
• Source #1: Sun & climate: moving in opposite directions
  Show me information about the source
  Hide
  More credible. Skeptical Science is a web blog created by cartoonist John Cook to combat online mis- and disinformation related to anthropogenic climate change. While not a relevant subject matter expert when it comes to climate science, Cook draws on peer-reviewed scientific papers that report the causes and predicted effects of anthropogenic climate change and the site has been praised by climate scientists.
• Source #2: Solar Climatic Effects (Recent Influence) Summary
  Show me information about the source
  Hide
  Less credible. The CO2 Coalition is a non-profit advocacy group that argues against the scientific consensus on anthropogenic climate change and has received funding from the oil and gas industry.

Lateral Reading Lesson Materials

Other Resources

This Plausibility Ranking Task (PRT), which may be completed prior to using any MELs, helps students to understand the role of evidence in supporting or refuting models.

• Plausibility Ranking Task (Acrobat (PDF) 76kB May6 24)

Virtual MEL

The Google Drive folder below contains MEL resource documents in the Google formats. In order to maximize the flexibility of our activities, the MEL Project Team wanted to make more resources compatible with virtual settings. We have made our MEL scaffolds available in Google formats, so that they can be copied, modified, and uploaded more easily on a variety of platforms and devices. Please note that to access all the materials for each MEL scaffold, you will need a Google account. View the README file first.

• README First Instructions & FAQ (Acrobat (PDF) 70kB May24 21)
• Virtual Climate Change MEL Resource Documents in Google Drive

Digital Resources

The mission of Climate Change: Vital Signs of the Planet is to provide the public with accurate and timely news and information about Earth's changing climate, along with current data and visualizations, presented from the unique perspective of NASA, one of the world's leading climate research agencies.

Climate Literacy and Energy Awareness Network (CLEAN) stewards a reviewed collection of free, high-quality teaching materials for teaching climate and energy and supports a community of professionals committed to improving climate and energy literacy.

NASA's The Causes of Climate Change webpage explains how human activities are driving the global warming trend observed since the mid-20th century.

NOAA's Climate.gov provides timely and authoritative scientific data and information about climate science, adaptation, and mitigation. It promotes public understanding of climate science and climate-related events, making NOAA data products and services easy to access and use. It serves people making climate-related decisions with tools and resources that help them answer specific questions.

The US Climate Resilience Toolkit is a website designed to help people find and use tools, information, and subject matter expertise to build climate resilience. The Toolkit offers information from all across the U.S. federal government in one easy-to-use location. Its goal is to improve people's ability to understand and manage their climate-related risks and opportunities, and to help them make their communities and businesses more resilient to extreme events.