Hands on Climate Change Explorations in the Classroom

MEESMarch 2, 2011

Marie Silver msilver@umassk12.netRob Snyder snyder@umassk12.net

STEM Education InstituteUniversity of Massachusetts Amherst

A wide range of Climate Change Education curriculum materials were developed for International Polar Year Summer

Institutes at UMass Amherst. They are available at

http://umassk12.net/ipy

Climate Change Education developed for the IPY summer

Institutes provides opportunities for students to:

1. Develop Spatial Thinking Interpret maps, diagrams, graphs, charts, animations

and models.2. Develop Temporal Thinking

Understand how the history of climate change is discovered and future changes predicted.

3. Understand Earth as a Complex System Explore feedbacks that occur between and among

components of Earth’s Climate System.4. Learn in the Field

Collect and analyze real time data and observations.

How Geoscientists Think and Learn, Kastens et al., EOS,Transactions, American Geophysical Union; August 4, 2009, p. 265

IPY Curriculum Materials on the web site include:

• Student activity documents.• Teacher’s guides that include related state and

national science learning standards.• PowerPoint presentations that accompany many

of the activities.• PowerPoint presentations by climate researched

at UMass Amherst and by guest climate researchers.

• Lists of sources of materials for activities.• References to webs sites and literature.

Sets of activities available today focus on three aspects of climate change.

• Earth’s Albedo: Sunlight is either absorbed or reflected from Earth’s surface

• Carbon Dioxide Measurements: CO2 can be measured and its pathways can be simulated.

• Changes in Sea Level: Melting land and sea ice will have different impacts on coastal lands as sea levels rise.

Paints trays can be used to demonstrate the impacts of rising sea levels.

Different parts of the world will experience a variety of changes in sea level.

Source: http://www.climate.org/topics/sea-level/index.html#sealevelrise

In one activity you can compare your CO2 measurements with measurements obtained from ice core data.

In another activity, you can learn how a light meter can be used to measure albedo.

Snow cover affects Earth’s albedo.

http://www.nohrsc.noaa.gov/nsa/index.html?region=National

Explore some of the IPY activities at the tables.