Global Climate Change: Fact or Fiction

Overview

There are a lot of articles about global climate change, some of them are based on science and data while others are based of opinions. This lesson will promote critical thinking about global climate change. Students will research articles that are about climate change, summarize the article, and decide if the article provides evidence (facts) or is composed of opinions.

Objectives

• Students will use the internet to find articles about global climate change.
• Students will read and summarize the article in a short paragraph.
• Students will decide if the article is base in fact or opinion.

Lesson Preparation

Introduce students to climate change.

Procedure

1. Discuss with the student’s concepts about global climate change.

   • Read the “Global Warming; News, facts, Causes & Effects”
   • Go onto discuss how people are still trying to decide for themselves if the climate is changing. Ask questions like;
     “Why do we care if the climate is changing or no?”
     “What is there to gain or lose if the climate is changing?”

2. Distribute handout.

   • Have student log onto computers.
   • Answer questions on the hand out.

3. Provided time and support as needed.

4. Gather assignments and review them with the class.

5. Revisit the questions:
   “Why do we care if the climate is changing or no?”
   “What is there to gain or lose if the climate is changing?”

   • Ask the students to support their answers with facts from their reading.
   • Provide time for them to gather facts that support their answers.

Extension

NA

Resources

• Live Science - Global Warming: News, Facts, Causes & Effects
• Live Science - Human-Driven Warming Started Nearly 200 Years Ago, Study Finds
• Live Science - Hottest Year Ever? 2016 Burns Through Heat Records, NASA Says

Assessment

Rubric included

Author / Credits:

Tim Wight at River City Academy in Soldotna, Alaska created this four-day lesson plan as a capstone project for the 2016 teacher training course entitled: Climate Change: Seeing, Understanding, and Teaching, held in Denali National Park. The course is facilitated by the Arctic Research Consortium of the U.S. (ARCUS) in partnership with Alaska Geographic and the National Park Service.

File Attachments

• Global Climate Change; Fact of Fiction worksheet
• Global Climate Change; Rubric

Standards

MS-ESS3 Earth and Human Activity
MS-ESS3-5. Ask questions to clarify evidence of the factors that have caused the rise in global temperatures over the past century

F1—Cultural, Social, Personal Perspectives, and Science
SF Students develop an understanding of the dynamic relationships among scientific, cultural, social, and personal perspectives.

The student demonstrates an understanding of the dynamic relationships among scientific, cultural, social, and personal perspectives by [7] SF1.1-SF3.1 investigating the basis of local knowledge (e.g., describing and predicting weather) and sharing that information (L). Cross referenced with SA3.1.