Climate Change Resources

Climate Change: Connections and Solutions by Facing the Future. Grades 6-8. http://www.facingthefuture.org/Curriculum/ClimateChangeGrades68/tabid/453/Default.aspx. This two-week curriculum unit encourages students to think critically about climate change and to collaborate to devise solutions. Students learn about climate change within a systems framework, examining interconnections among environmental, social, and economic issues.

Climate Change: Connections and Solutions by Facing the Future. Grades 9-12. http://www.facingthefuture.org/Curriculum/ClimateChangeGrades912/tabid/454/Default.aspx. This two-week curriculum encourages students to think critically about climate change and to collaborate to devise solutions. Students learn about climate change within a systems framework, examining interconnections among environmental, social, and economic issues.

The Fall 2012 issue of The Earth Scientist focuses on teaching climate literacy. Included in this issue is an article, "Lesson Plans and Classroom Activities from the Climate Literacy Abrassadors Community" by Maragaret Mooney et al. Margaret serves on WICCI's Outreach Roundtable. Download the issue at http://www.nestanet.org/cms/sites/default/files/journal/current.pdf.

To What Degree? Climate Change Videos. National Science Foundation. Grades 6-12. http://www.nsf.gov/news/special_reports/degree/. This collection of video segments features more than 50 leading climate researchers discussing climate change. Segments include “How do we know the Earth is warming?” and “What does carbon dioxide have to do with global warming?” Other clips provide information on topics such as the water cycle, recent predictions, and climate modeling. Click on “Meet the Experts” for biographies of the scientists.

What's the Worst that Could Happen?: A Rational Response to the Climate Change Debate by Grag Craven. Penguin Group, Perigree Trade, New York, NY. (2009). Based on a series of viral videos that have garnered more than 7.2 million views, this visually appealing book gives readers-be they global warming activists, soccer moms, or NASCAR dads-a way to decide on the best course of action, by asking them to consider, "What's the worst that could happen?" And for those who decide that action is needed, Craven provides a solution that is not only powerful but also happens to be stunningly easy.

Climate, Adaptation, Mitigation, E-Learning (CAMEL).This online e-learning site is a free, comprehensive, multi-media resource for educators, providing over 200 interdisciplinary topic areas and numerous resource types to give the educator the tools they need to teach about climate change, its causes, consequences, solutions, and actions. Site users are able to build their own personal website, invite others, and collaborate around teaching materials, strategies and assessment. CAMEL is a three-year, collaborative project funded through the National Science Foundation.  To learn more, visit http://www.camelclimatechange.org/.

Climate Debate Daily. Douglas Campbell and Denis Dutton. http://climatedebatedaily.com. Climate Debate Daily is intended to deepen understanding of disputes over climate change and the human contribution to it. The site links to scientific articles, news stories, economic studies, editorials, and more. The column on the left includes arguments in support of the IPCC position on the reality of anthropogenic global warming. The right column includes material skeptical of the IPCC position and the notion that anthropogenic global warming represents a threat to humanity. As a matter of editorial policy, Climate Debate Daily maintains neutrality to allow readers to form their own judgments.

Alliance for Climate Education (ACE). http://www.acespace.org/. ACE is an award-winning national nonprofit dedicated to educating America's high school students about the science behind climate change and inspiring them to do something about it—while having fun along the way. They are based in Oakland, California, with educator teams in Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, Washington, DC, Boston, Atlanta and Colorado. ACE delivers two core offerings: the free ACE Assembly on climate change and the

Student Action Program. Educational Graphics on Global Climate Change and the Greenhouse Effect. http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gsd/outreach/education/climgraph/. NOAA’s Earth System Research Laboratory. Contains many useful graphics including images, graphs, and cartoons.

Climate Kids: NASA’s eyes on the Earth. http://climate.nasa.gov/kids/index.cfm. NASA’s climate change site for kids provides information on climate change basics, news stories related to climate change, and educator resources. The site also has interactive games under the Earth Now section and short videos throughout the site.

United States Global Change Research Program. http://www.globalchange.gov/. This web site is a well-organized resource for information on the many facets of climate change. Users can examine climate change impacts by region (including the Great Lakes), sector (such as ecosystems and society), and agency (how the United States federal agencies are related to climate change issues).

Global and Regional Climate Change course. This FREE professional development course for middle and high school science teachers was developed collaboratively by University of Wisconsin-Madison faculty and staff from the following departments: Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences (AOS) Space Science and Engineering Center (SSEC) Cooperative Institute for Meteorological Satellite Studies (CIMSS) Center for Climatic Research (CCR) and Geology and Geophysics (G&G). To register, visit http://cimss.ssec.wisc.edu/climatechange/.