The Arctic Ocean Curriculum Unit was created by the Arctic Research Consortium of the United States with funding from the North Pacific Research Board. This project aimed to update and revise existing Arctic Ocean-related lesson plans originally created by PolarTREC program teacher alumni. The format used lends itself to the changes in education - providing student-facing slide decks that allow
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
The lesson will be in two parts:
* Part one will involve the students making layers of sediment with clay also including particles (such as beads to represent pollen, etc.) and then they will make core samples using a drinking straw as a coring tool.
* Part two will involve the class taking a mud core sample from
This is an article detailing the alarming rate at which the Arctic is changing. The article goes through the specific examples of Sea ice, Greenland, Wildfires and Permafrost. This is a readable article for advanced middle school and high school students, and an excellent resource for teachers.
In this investigation, students will measure production of CO2 from surface water and consider the role of surface waters in the global carbon cycle and climate change. They will gather data on using Vernier CO2 sensors. This lesson presents a wonderful opportunity for student-designed experiments.
This is a good lesson to get students thinking about the complexity of the systems involved in providing our society with energy, the consequences of energy use and efficiency. Students are encouraged to explore the data sets on their own, ask their own questions about energy use and present their findings to each other.
Students will explore the concept of albedo and how it relates to melting ice and climate change. This is a hands-on activity where students measure the reflectivity of various surfaces as a model for how light interacts with different parts of the Earth’s surface. This is adapted from lessons created by Jamie Esler and SERC earthlabs.
Learning about feedback mechanisms is an important part of understanding how climate change will play out in the near and long term. Students are also exposed to the idea that scientists create simple models of complex climate systems and that feedback mechanisms play a crucial role in climate modeling.
By rolling a die, students will simulate a molecule of carbon’s movement with in the carbon cycle. This is a fun, active way to introduce students to the carbon cycle and/or to review the cycle and identify carbon sinks and sources.
Students experience the carbon cycle as CO2 molecules or as stored carbon and travel the path of
This lesson is for students to be able to read an informative piece of writing and identify factual statements and statements of opinions. In this lesson, we will be focusing on local and national articles relating to climate change.
This lesson was inspired by my time in Denali looking at evidence consistent with climate change and being exposed