Working with Climate Change Data part of Introductory Courses:Activities
Eileen Herrstrom, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
This activity takes place in a laboratory setting and requires ~1.5-2 hours to complete. Students use spreadsheets to create graphs data related to climate change: sunspots, insolation, carbon dioxide, and global ...

Module 4: Global Records of Climate Change - The Deep Sea and Ice Cores part of Neotoma:Teaching Activities
Russell Graham, Pennsylvania State University-Main Campus
In this module, students explore and analyze records of past climate. In the first part of the module, students are given background information about long-term records of Earth's climate: deep sea sediment cores and ice cores. Students are also introduced to Oxygen isotopes and how they are used as records of past climate. Students complete a set of exercises that assess their understanding of the material and ask them to analyze data about the Laurentide Ice Sheet using the Neotoma Explorer. In the second part of the module, students examine Antarctic ice core data and apply their knowledge from the beginning of the module. Part of the Neotoma Education Modules for Biotic Response to Climate Change.

Module 11: Human-Environment Interactions part of Future of Food
Steven Vanek, Pennsylvania State Univ-Penn St. Erie-Behrend Coll; Karl Zimmerer, Pennsylvania State University-Main Campus
Module 11 focuses on the way that human-environment interactions in food systems respond to stress. Food production systems and food systems in general face adversity and must have sources of resilience to overcome ...

Module 9: Climate Change part of Future of Food
Gigi Richard, Fort Lewis College
Module 9 is dedicated to climate change and explores the role that agriculture plays in human-induced climate change and the impacts that climate change may have on agriculture. In addition, adaptation strategies ...

Tracking Sea Level and Paleoenvironments with Fossils part of Introductory Courses:Activities
Pete Berquist, Virginia Peninsula Community College
Students use the Paleobiology Database Navigator to examine changes in sea level in southeastern North America throughout the Cretaceous, Paleogene, and Neogene Periods. They will plot the change in distribution of ...

Unit 6: Hydrologic Balance and Climate Change part of Modeling Earth Systems
Kirsten Menking, Vassar College
In this unit, students create a STELLA model of the Owens River chain of lakes in eastern California and then experiment with different climate change scenarios to simulate the Pleistocene history of lake filling ...

Unit 7: Heat Flow in Permafrost part of Modeling Earth Systems
Kirsten Menking, Vassar College
In this unit, students create a STELLA model of heat flow in the top 1 km of Earth's crust to explore the use of Arctic borehole temperature profiles as recorders of anthropogenic warming. The exercise draws ...

Unit 8: Thermohaline Circulation part of Modeling Earth Systems
David Bice, Pennsylvania State University-Main Campus
In this module, students first review some background material on density-driven deep currents in the oceans, and then create a STELLA model of the thermohaline circulation in the North Atlantic Ocean. The model ...

Unit 9: Carbon Cycle and Ocean Chemistry part of Modeling Earth Systems
David Bice, Pennsylvania State University-Main Campus
In this module, students first review some background material on the terrestrial, marine, and anthropogenic processes involved in the storage and transfer of carbon in the Earth system. The students then build a ...

Summative Assessment: Creating a model part of Modeling Earth Systems
Kirsten Menking, Vassar College; Louisa Bradtmiller, Macalester College; David Bice, Pennsylvania State University-Main Campus
The summative assessment for this course requires students to construct, utilize, and critique a numerical model of a climate-related Earth system of their choosing. The project involves four pieces: creating a ...