Justice, Power, and Activism: What the Goldman Environmental Prize Winners Teach Us About Resilience and Democracy
This activity is a set of student-centered exercises that enable students to learn about the individual stories of Goldman environmental prize winners, the activism and organizing that grounds their work, and the underlying political and social contexts from which their struggles emerge. The lesson inspires critical reflection about justice, power, and democracy in green politics, and encourages ways to make personal connections to activism and environmental work.

Unit 6: Carbon Emissions Game
In this unit, students play a game, a variation on the "Pollution Game" (Corrigan 2011), to develop an appreciation of the pros and cons of the commonly discussed policy options for carbon abatement ...

1. Electricity, Work, and Power
This module is designed to prepare students to better understand the other modules in the course. It is a review of basic high school-level physics, reminding students of the fundamentals of energy, work, power, ...

Biomass conversion into highly useful chemicals
This is CURE based course that aims at bridging the gap between theoretical knowledge in chemistry and its practical applications at solving real-world problems. It gives students an opportunity to construct and synthesize their knowledge and skills by learning to apply theoretical knowledge to practice by the laboratory research. The purpose of this course is to acquaint students with the fundamental concepts of chemistry, synthetic methods and techniques. The emphasis will be on novel catalysts synthesis and evaluating their activity towards biomass conversion to liquid fuel and useful chemicals. Students will design synthesize, deduce identities of the biomass conversion products from chemical and spectral clues, and predict reaction products.

Unit 5: Modern CO2 Accumulation
Students will examine data that record the modern increase in carbon dioxide concentrations and the associated increase in average temperatures, and they will investigate the effects of carbon dioxide on various ...

Unit 6: Moving Forward: Evaluating Impacts of Modern-day Proposals Affecting the Carbon-cycle and Climate
In this unit, students will review mock proposals that deal with some aspect of the role of carbon in the environment. Each proposal is based on actual actions proposed to mitigate some aspect of carbon consumption ...

Unit 4: Fossil Fuel Formation
Students will explore various aspects of fossil fuels by examining the various ranks of coal and the processes by which coal, oil, and natural gas form.

8. Efficiency and Conservation
Household energy use accounts for a significant portion of the nation's energy use; therefore, an important aspect of energy conservation is having buildings that are energy efficient. In this activity, ...

9. Hybrid and Electric Cars
This module reviews the history of the automobile and its varied power sources, culminating in the latest versions of hybrid and electric cars.

7. Better Ways to Illuminate
In this module, students compare three types of lamps that are used for lighting: incandescent, compact fluorescent (CFL) and light-emitting diodes (LEDs). Students collect data on the amount of heat and light ...

6. Energy from and to the Earth
This module compares the spatial availability of geothermal resources for heating and cooling and evaluates different ground exchange systems for practical application. The operation of enhanced geothermal systems ...

5. Passive Designs
In this module, we consider how the actual design and placement of buildings can be important considerations for energy efficiency, thereby optimizing winter heating and summer cooling needs. One of the simplest ...

Unit 3: Dynamic Integrated Climate Economy (DICE) Modeling
After an opening discussion of systems thinking and models, student use webDICE , an online Dynamic Integrated Climate Economy model developed by Center for Robust Decision Making on Climate and Energy Policy at ...

2. Using Wind to do Work
This module shows students how wind (atmospheric circulation) is produced from solar radiation, gravity, and the spinning of Earth. It then develops the history of how humans have harnessed the power of the wind, ...

3. Thermal Energy from Light
In this module, students learn the basic principles and techniques involved with converting solar radiation to useful heat. They explore the concepts of temperature and heat, and the physical basis for solar ...

Renewable Energy Virtual Field Trip
This is a virtual field trip on the subject of renewable energy. The Google Earth slideshow will take you around the world to different key renewable energy sites across the world. Each site will have a quick ...

Design an electric utility resource plan for 2025 and beyond
Students will design the integration of renewable or carbon neutral energy sources into the electricity generation mix of an example utility. The structure is a budget or a design or maybe even a puzzle where all ...

Climate Justice and Health Impacts of Methane (so-called Natural Gas) in General or Introductory Chemistry
In this activity, students explore the chemical forms of methane (CH4), learn about the various sources and uses of methane, and gain knowledge of human health impacts and the disproportionate impact of extraction pollution on poor and racialized communities. They also connect the social justice impacts of methane to methane chemistry and exercises in the classroom.

Carbon Dioxide Birthday

Systems Thinking and Civic Engagement for Climate Justice in General Chemistry: CO2 and PM 2.5 Pollution from Coal Combustion
Students apply chemistry to a climate justice case study using a systems thinking perspective in class and discuss the connections between chemistry and climate justice in a conversation with a community outside of the classroom for civic engagement. The instructor offers formative feedback during class time and in response to discussion posts. Feedback is meant to build understanding and application of concepts important to learning chemistry within a systems thinking context and using civic engagement to communicate how chemistry relates to climate justice.