CarboSchools Library

Climate Change: Didactic Materials

Classroom Activities & Experiments - Citizenship Activities - Websites - Media Coverage - Pedagogical Advice

new entries since Jan-2009:
- The Other CO2 Problem
- Take AIM at Climate Change
- Eco-Schools

Classroom Activities & Experiments:

Carbon Dioxide Fertilization of Marine Microalgae (Dunalliela sp.) Cultures:

An experiment designed to illustrate the impact of carbon dioxide on microalgal growth in the aquatic environment.

Age: 10-12 and 16-18.
Time: some hours for preparation, 10 days for cultures
Language: English
Material: specialized
Author: Sally Soria-Dengg, CarboSchools
Feedback: none yet
Download: Description (Word or pdf).

The Carbon Dioxide Game:

www.greenteacher.com/articles.html

A "fun, active outdoor game for helping students visualize how human activities enhance the natural greenhouse effect."
Age: 10+.
Language: English, French,
Material: chalk.
Source: Green Teacher 70, Spring 2003.
Comments: none

Climate Challenge - a Game:

www.bbc.co.uk/sn/hottopics/climatechange/climate_challenge/

An online game where "you are president of the European Nations. You must tackle climate change and stay popular enough with the voters to remain in office". The educational goal is "to give an understanding of some of the causes of climate change, particularly those related to carbon dioxide emissions, to give players an awareness of some of the policy options available to governments, and to give a sense of the challenges facing international climate change negotiators."
Age: grades 10-13.
Language: English.
Material: web-browser, Flash plugin.
Comments: none

Climate Change - Connections and Solutions:

www.facingthefuture.org/Curriculum/DownloadFreeCurriculum/tabid/114/Default.aspx#Curriculum%20Unit

An interdisciplinary 2-week curriculum for U.S. high schools. (Download is free but requires registration.)
Age: grades 6-8 and 9-12.
Language: English.
Material: low-tech.
Comments: - 1 -

Experiment Instructions for Ship Cruises:

Our instruction made for the one-day cruises. Requires quite a lot of logistics to perform, e.g. a tiny research vessel and a CTD.
Age: 15+
Time: 1 day excursion
Language: English
Material: specialized
Author: Ingunn Skjelvan, CarboSchools
Feedback: none yet
Download: Description (Word or pdf).

Hands-on Experiments for Secondary School Students:

A selection of projects and experiments to motivate teachers and scientists to find their own experiments or to improve some of the presented ones. Most were collected from the experiment archive of the physics division of the Neufeld Gymnasium in Bern and were contributed to CarboSchools in the first phase of the project.

Age: 14+
Time: varies
Language: English
Material: school physics lab equipment.
Author: Marc Eyer, University of Bern.
Feedback: none yet
Download: Booklet (pdf).

How the climate is going to change in the next century:

An activity with colored balls and climate scenarios, designed to give an impression of the reliability of the statistics of predictions.
Age: 12-14
Time: 15 min. (with 20 min. preparation)
Language: English (mostly)
Material: low-tech.
Author: Anna Font, CarboSchools
Feedback: none yet
Download: Description (Word or pdf), Panel with temperature predictions (pdf).

Java Climate Model:

chooseclimate.org/jcm

A browser-based tool to simulate the implications of different IPCC-based emission scenarios. Quite powerful, but a little hard to get into.
Age: Might be useful for students age 14 and above, but more as an instructional tool.
Language: English.
Last update: Not quite up to date (refers to data from 2000); last update March 2007.
Comments: - 1 -

Mass Balance Model to Understand Carbon Dioxide and its Connection to Global Warming:

serc.carleton.edu/quantskills/workshopactivities/co2_global.html

A browser-based tool that calculates atmospheric concentration for a given emission growth rate. Well documented.
Age: Focused on undergraduate students, but applicable (with some simplifications) starting from age 14.
Language: English.
Last update: June 2008.
Comments: none

Meteorological Analysis of Territory and Photosynthesis Measurements of Plants in the School Garden:

Two brief descriptions of experiments to be conducted by the CarboSchools project in Firenze this school year.

Age: 15+
Time: 30 min - 1 hr for photosynthesis measurements (repeated over several weeks to obtain time series)
Language: English (Italian version available on request)
Material: specialized
Author: Francesca Ugolini, CarboSchools
Feedback: none yet
Download: Description (Word or pdf).

Solubility of Carbon Dioxide in Water:

www.science-tube.com/index.php?c=chemie&section=061

A simple experiment to demonstrate that CO2 is quickly dissolved in water.
Age: 11 and above.
Language: English. (German version at Netexperimente.de)
Material: low-tech.
Comments: - 1 -

Citizenship Activities:

Eco-Schools:

www.eco-schools.org

An international programme for environmental education for sustainability, involving full pupil participation in the decision making, planning and activities.
Age: 6+ (?)
Language: Website: English, Branches: in various countries.
Last updates: 2008.
Comments: none

Young Reporters for the Environment:

www.youngreporters.org

A network for student teams from secondary schools from 17 countries, who make investigations and write reports on environmental issues. The site offers examples of projects and student reports, a database of school projects, contacts to national operators, invitations to competitions.
Age: 14+ (?)
Language: Website: English, Reports: various languages.
Last updates: 2008.
Comments: none

Websites:

Change - turn down, switch off, recycle, walk:

ec.europa.eu/environment/climat/campaign/resources/publication_en.htm

A "Brochure for students with information about climate change and the role that you can play in controlling it" by the European Commission.
Age: 12+
Language: English (Spanish, German, French, Italian, Dutch, and several other languages).
Published: 2007.
Comments: none

Climate Change and the Greenhouse Effect:

www.metoffice.gov.uk/research/hadleycentre/models/modeldata.html

A briefing from the Met Office Hadley Centre: a collection of 60 slides with notes on the state of the climate and projections for the future.
Age: 16+
Language: English.
Published: 2005.
Comments: none

Climate Change Collection - Encyclopedia of Earth:

www.eoearth.org/article/Climate_Change_(collection)

A collection that "brings together some of the world’s leading scientists and organizations and presents the essential knowledge underlying the issue of climate change."
Age: 15+
Languages: English.
Last updates: 2008.
Source: Environmental Information Coalition.
Comments: none

ESPERE: Environmental Science Published for Everybody Round the Earth:

www.espere.net

"Information on the climate system ... for schools and the world's citizens". Fairly extensive encyclopedia on atmospheric and oceanic climate processes.
Age: 14+
Languages: English, French, Spanish, German, Norwegian.
Last updates: 2006 (?).
Source: International Scientific association ESPERE.
Comments: - 1 -

Koshland Science Museum - Global Warming Facts:

www.koshland-science-museum.org/exhibitgcc/index.jsp

Instructional web activity.
Age: 14+
Language: English.
Last updates: 2008.
Source: National Academy of Sciences.
Comments: none

The Why? Files:

whyfiles.org

Various scientific topics including climate change. Summaries of research in a very understandable language.
Age: 12+
Language: English.
Last updates: 2008.
Source: University of Wisconsin.
Comments: none

Media Coverage:

Take AIM at Climate Change:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=08z-Hw7s54E
and
takeaimatclimatechange.com

A music video sponsored by NSF and NASA, portraying climate change in the Arctic and Antarctic and encouraging AIM (Adaptation, Innovation, Mitigation).
Age: 12+
Language: English.
Produced: 2009
Source: POLAR-PALOOZA and Passport to Knowledge.
Comments: none

The Other CO2 Problem:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=55D8TGRsl4k

Animated film about the issue of ocean acidification, produced by Ridgeway School (Plymouth, UK) and Plymouth Marine Laboratory. Funded by the European Project on OCean Acidification (EPOCA).
Age: 12+
Language: English.
Produced: 2009
Comments: none

Pedagogical Advice:

Teacher-Scientist Partnership Guide:

Practical advice on how to implement a CarboSchools project.
Audience: Teachers and Scientists
Languages: English.
Published: 2005
Author: Philippe Saugier, CarboSchools
Feedback: none yet
Download: here

Teaching Quantitative Skills in the Geosciences:

serc.carleton.edu/quantskills

"Information on the issues involved in teaching quantitative skills and methods for doing so as well as additional resources and a community of other faculty who are all attempting this challenging task". Basically focused on teaching undergraduate students, but interesting to take a glance.
Age: teachers
Language: English.
Last updates: 2008.
Source: Science Education Resource Center (SERC) at Carleton College.
Comments: none

Scientific Facts and Implications for Society

last update: 22-Apr-09

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J. Dengg