Modeling Earth's Energy Balance part of Complex Systems:Teaching Activities
Kirsten Menking, Vassar College
In this exercise, students use the STELLA box modeling software to determine Earth's temperature based on incoming solar radiation and outgoing terrestrial radiation. Starting with a simple black body model, ...

Investigating the Effect of Warmer Temperatures on Hurricanes part of Hurricanes-Climate Change Connection:Activities
Serena Poli, Eastern Michigan University
Students investigate the link between ocean temperatures and hurricane intensity, analyze instrumental and historical data and speculate on possible future changes.

Exploring the Link between Hurricanes and Climate using GCM Results part of Hurricanes-Climate Change Connection:Activities
Cindy Shellito, University of Northern Colorado
This activity requires students to examine global climate model output available online and consider the potential impact of global warming on tropical cyclone initiation and evolution. As a follow-up, students ...

Sea Ice Extension for the Earth as a System Learning Activity part of Visualization:Examples
Gary Randolph, GLOBE
The purpose is to identify global patterns and connections in environmental data contained in the GLOBE Earth Systems Poster; to connect observations made within the Earth Systems Poster to data and information at ...

Gulf Stream Heat Budget and Europe part of Visualization:Examples
Warren Tomkiewicz, Plymouth State University
Student groups are presented a problem scenario to research and make recommendations, predictions, and a resolution of the problem based on data and visualizations.

Ice Core Exercise part of Climate Change:Activities
William Locke, Montana State University-Bozeman
This assignment (for upper-division/graduate students) provides exposure to ice core data, problem-solving to register data sets, technical challenges in data manipulation and statistics, and an opportunity to ...

Daisyworld Model part of Complex Systems:Teaching Activities
Kirsten Menking, Vassar College
In this exercise, students recreate the classic Daisyworld model of Watson and Lovelock (1983). Daisyworld is a planet covered by two species of daisy, one white and one black, whose growth is determined by ...

Confirmation of the IPCC Prediction re: Increased Storminess part of Hurricanes-Climate Change Connection:Activities
Robert Kuhlman, Montgomery County Community College
A two-part culminating activity for a meteorology/climatology unit in an Earth Science course centered upon data acquisition and analysis regarding the confirmation of the IPCC predicition regarding increased ...

Student Lead Discussions: Articles from the Literature and Final Writing Assignment part of Hurricanes-Climate Change Connection:Activities
Dave Dempsey, San Francisco State University
This is a two-stage assignment. The first stage is a student-led discussion of a set of closely related articles selected by the instructors from the climate change literature. The second stage is an 8-12 page ...

Tropical Cyclones, Sea Surface Temperature, and Beyond part of Hurricanes-Climate Change Connection:Activities
Danielle Schmitt, Princeton University
The activity will use historical data of sea surface temperature and tropical cyclone origin and/or tracks to identify trends. Students use Arc GIS to explore projected SST changes and predict areas where tropical ...