Our Change to Make!

Learning Resource Type

Classroom Resource

Subject Area

Science

Grade(s)

9, 10, 11, 12

Overview

Students explore the human effects of climate change and global strategies for mitigation and adaptation. Next, they track their own carbon footprint and interview school community members to identify key carbon-emitting behaviors. Finally, students design and present a Climate Change Challenge Pledge to help others in the school community commit to reducing their climate impact. This lesson is part of the Climate Change Challenge unit.

Science (2015) Grade(s): 09-12 - Environmental Science

SC15.ES.12

Analyze and interpret data and climate models to predict how global or regional climate change can affect Earth’s systems (e.g., precipitation and temperature and their associated impacts on sea level, glacial ice volumes, and atmosphere and ocean composition).

UP:SC15.ES.12

Vocabulary

  • global climate change
  • abiotic reservoirs
  • biotic reservoirs
  • photosynthesis
  • cellular respiration
  • Greenhouse Effect
  • Industrial Revolution
  • carbon sequestration
  • non-fossil fuel energy sources
  • carbon footprint
  • sea level variations
  • temperature
  • precipitation
  • chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) = refrigerants, aerosols, foams, propellants, solvents
  • methane
  • nitrous oxide
  • water vapor
  • Kyoto Protocol
  • IPCC
  • The Paris Agreement
  • UNFCCC

Knowledge

Students know:
  • Gases that absorb and radiate heat in the atmosphere are greenhouse gases.
  • Increasing greenhouse gases increases global temperature that may result in climate change.
  • Climate change can produce potentially serious environmental problems that affect Earth's systems.
  • Global awareness and policies have been established in response to the potential threats caused by global climate change.
  • Examples of evidence for climate change (such as precipitation and temperature) and their associated impacts (e.g., affects on sea level, glacial ice volumes, and atmospheric and oceanic composition).
  • The outcomes predicted by climate models depend on the amounts of greenhouse gases added to the atmosphere each year and by the ways in which these gases are absorbed by the hydrosphere and biosphere.

Skills

Students are able to:
  • Compare and contrast greenhouse gas production in developed and developing countries.
  • Analyze the data and identify and describe relationships within the datasets, including changes over time on multiple scales and relationships between quantities in the given data.
  • Analyze data using tools, technologies, and/or models in order to make valid and reliable scientific claims about global climate change.
  • Analyze the data to describe a selected aspect of present or past climate and the associated physical parameters (e.g., temperature, precipitation, sea level) or chemical composition.
  • Analyze the data to predict the future effect of a selected aspect of climate change on the physical parameters (e.g., temperature, precipitation, sea level) or chemical composition (e.g., ocean pH) of the atmosphere, geosphere, hydrosphere, or cryosphere.
  • Describe whether the predicted effect on the system is reversible or irreversible.
  • Identify sources of uncertainty in the prediction of the effect in the future of a selected aspect of climate change.
  • Identify limitations of the models that provided the data and ranges used to make the predictions.

Understanding

Students understand that:
  • Important discoveries are still being made about how the ocean, the atmosphere, and the biosphere interact and are modified in response to changing climate conditions.
  • Scientific knowledge is based on empirical evidence, and scientific arguments are strengthened by multiple lines of evidence supporting a single explanation.
  • The magnitudes of human impact are greater than they have ever been, and so too are human abilities to model, predict, and manage current and future impacts .
  • Change and rates of change to systems can be quantified over short or long periods of time, and some system changes are irreversible.

Scientific and Engineering Practices

Analyzing and Interpreting Data

Crosscutting Concepts

Cause and Effect
Science (2015) Grade(s): 09-12 - Environmental Science

SC15.ES.13

Obtain, evaluate, and communicate information based on evidence to explain how key natural resources (e.g., water sources, fertile soils, concentrations of minerals and fossil fuels), natural hazards, and climate changes influence human activity (e.g., mass migrations).

UP:SC15.ES.13

Vocabulary

  • natural hazards - earthquake, volcano, tsunami, soil erosion, hurricane, drought, flood
  • natural resources - fresh water, fertile soil, minerals, fossil fuels
  • climate change
  • acid precipitation
  • acid shock
  • biodegradable material
  • greenhouse gases
  • demographic change
  • desalinization
  • ecological footprint
  • fuel cell
  • hydroelectric energy
  • land use planning
  • leachate
  • limiting resource
  • migration
  • natural selection
  • nuclear energy
  • solar heating
  • petroleum
  • sustainability
  • urbanization
  • urban sprawl

Knowledge

Students know:
  • Examples of natural resources, natural hazards, and climate changes.
  • Over time, historical technological advances have been made in response to limited natural resources, increasing natural hazards, and climate change.
  • Resource availability has guided the development of human society.
  • Natural hazards have shaped the course of human history and have altered the sizes and distributions of human populations.

Skills

Students are able to:
  • Gather, read, and evaluate scientific and/or technical information from multiple authoritative sources, assessing the evidence and usefulness of each source.
  • Analyze and interpret data regarding human activity over time, including how features of human societies have been affected by availability of natural resources and how human populations have depended on technological systems to acquire natural resources and modify physical settings.
  • Describe the reasoning for how the evidence allows for the distinction between causal and correlational relationships between environmental factors and human activity.

Understanding

Students understand that:
  • Resource availability has guided the development of human society.
  • Natural hazards, changes in climate, and the availability of natural resources have had and will continue to have an effect on the features of human society, including population sizes and migration patterns.
  • Technology has changed the cause and effect relationship between the development of human society and natural hazards, climate, and natural resources.

Scientific and Engineering Practices

Obtaining, Evaluating, and Communicating Information

Crosscutting Concepts

Cause and Effect

CR Resource Type

Lesson/Unit Plan

Resource Provider

National Geographic

License Type

Custom
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