Unit 1: Energy, Space, and Earth's Effective Temperature part of Earths Thermostat
Allison Dunn, Worcester State University; Phil Resor, Wesleyan University; Bob Mackay, Clark College
This unit is designed to engage students by introducing them to patterns in recent climate and investigating possible reasons for recent changes. Students work in small groups to plot and analyze real-world ...

Unit 2: Earth's Atmosphere and Its Influence on Temperature part of Earths Thermostat
Allison Dunn, Worcester State University; Phil Resor, Wesleyan University; Bob Mackay, Clark College
This unit investigates the role of the atmosphere on incoming solar and outgoing terrestrial radiation and analyzes modern trends in greenhouse gas concentrations. Students first investigate radiation spectra to ...

Unit 6: Capstone: A modern catastrophic volcanic eruption? part of Earths Thermostat
Bob Mackay, Clark College; Phil Resor, Wesleyan University; Allison Dunn, Worcester State University
This unit is the module's capstone project: developing a conceptual model of the climatic and societal effects of a catastrophic volcanic eruption occurring in modern times. Through independent research and ...

Unit 5: Circulation in the atmosphere - a map and cross section based jigsaw part of Earths Thermostat
Phil Resor, Wesleyan University; Allison Dunn, Worcester State University; Bob Mackay, Clark College
In this optional activity, students analyze maps of wind patterns from three levels in the atmosphere in order to infer global atmospheric circulation patterns and their role in balancing the radiation budget they ...

Unit 3. Urban Water - Atmospheric Environment Interactions part of Water Sustainability in Cities
Marshall Shepherd, University of Georgia
Unit 3 addresses concepts related to urban-atmosphere interactions. The content explores how urban landscapes and atmospheric constituents modify or interact with the atmosphere to affect temperature, clouds, ...

Did Early Farmers Alter Climate? part of Teaching Activities
Sue Swanson, Beloit College
The overarching goal of this exercise is for students to explore the early anthropogenic hypothesis, which claims that early agriculture had a substantial impact on greenhouse gases and global climate thousands of ...

Paleoclimate part of IODP School of Rock 2020:Teaching Activities
Lenore Teevan, School of Innovation/Springfield City School District
This is a unit plan for project-based learning. Students will learn about paleoclimate proxies and their importance in understanding past climates. Students will focus on one region-specific aspect of paleoclimate ...

Unit 4.1 - Energy Budgets part of Critical Zone Science
Jim Washburne, The University of Arizona
The purpose of this unit is to explore, compare, contrast, and calculate energy fluxes from different CZO field sites to better appreciate the critical differences in the driving radiative forces affecting each ...

Unit 1: Hydrologic Cycle part of Interactions between Water, Earth’s Surface, and Human Activity
Julie Monet, California State University-Chico
In this unit, students investigate water from a global perspective. The focus of students learning is on the identification of storehouses where Earth's water is stored, how matter (water) cycles through the ...

Unit 5: Linking Processes Driven By Internal and External Energy Sources part of Interactions between Water, Earth’s Surface, and Human Activity
Susan DeBari, Western Washington University
Students use what they have learned in the previous units to link the above-ground part of the rock cycle (driven by the hydrologic cycle, energy from the Sun, and gravity) to the below-ground part of the rock ...