Forums

I just completes an online class on climate change and thought that other might like a link to some of the resources. I will work on putting together an annotated list. Meanwhile here are a few of my favorites. Please add to this list and help others by commenting on the value of the sites. I wish there were a like button so we could get a crowd-sourcing perspective of what sites were most valuable. ACS Climate Science Toolkit Global climate change, whether a result of natural variability or of human activity, is a vital issue for life on Earth and involves many processes and concepts related to chemistry. Engaging with this issue in deliberative discourse with colleagues and others requires understanding the fundamental science that determines Earth’s climate. This fundamental science is the core content of the ACS Climate Science Toolkit. http://portal.acs.org/portal/acs/corg/content?_nfpb=true&_pageLabel=PP_MULTICOLUMN_T2_50&node_id=819&use_sec=false&sec_url_var=region1&__uuid=609c210c-05da-486c-9c77-f244d67b6c69

Another site I like is cleannet.org http://cleanet.org/index.html This site specifically addresses teaching climate literacy. You will find reviewed educational resources. There is also an active online community that you can join to receive newsletter updates and participate in webinars.

Hi Pam,
Thank you for beginning this forum discussion. I have been asked to teach a Climate/Weather HS level electives course in Fall 2014. I have just begun researching sites, this will be such a great support for me in that effort.

I have noticed many sites unite Weather/Climate topics...and just as many keep them separate. What are your thoughts on this practice? I would appreciate hearing from other educators what their schools are doing or those that are also preparing to teach a similar course.

Enjoy your week, Alyce

Alyce, This is a difficult issue. Climate is rather like a moving average of longer periods of time where as weather is what is happening now. So this leaves us with how long is a long period of time? We used 30 year moving averages. I have seen longer time frames. I am not sure what the accepted values are here. Good question.

Hi Pam,
I recently participated in an online Survey Monkey that was posted in a new discussion forum, 'Underground Weather Survey.'

Hopefully, the results and progress of curriculum development will be updated. The questionaire linked Weather/Climate together in their questions.

I feel that weather and climate should be taught together since climate is weather patterns over time. They go together and if taught separately could cause confusion and misconceptions in students. They might think that these two things were not related!

Hello All,
As you may know, Weather Underground is developing teacher resources for a weather and climate science curriculum. We are looking for survey respondents to help guide us in development of these resources. Any feedback would be much appreciated! You can take the survey here:
WU Teacher Survey
If you have any questions, feel free to contact me. Thank you!
Ambar Munoz
Weather Underground
[email protected]

Great topic!

I attended a Changing Climate/Changing Culture teacher institute sponsored by the National Park Service this past summer (Apostle Islands National Lakeshore). It was amazing!
If they offer these again this summer in your area, I highly recommend you investigate the learning opportunity.
This teacher institute really brought home the idea of connecting Climate Change to human cultural practices (life ways -traditional harvests, etc.)

A few favorite Climate Change websites:
Climate Wisconsin - Stories from a State of Change
http://climatewisconsin.org/
(Short videoclips about changing cultural lifeways/harvests. Also data on temperature change and ice cover changes).

Wild Rice Curriculum Resource from Teachers Discovering Climate Change from a Native Perspective
http://nasagcce.wordpress.com/teacher-resources/climate-lite...inciple-3/

US GLobal Change Research Program
http://www.globalchange.gov/resources/educators/toolkit

Dorothy Ginnett

There is also the archive from the web seminar, New Climate Tools for Educators, offered on May 3, 2012. http://learningcenter.nsta.org/products/symposia_seminars/indy2012/webseminar2.aspx See this Web Seminar's Archive Presentation - PDF version (1.68 MB) New - Add the Learning Center resource collection to your My Library! The PowerPoint, related resources from the NSTA Learning Center, and web links from the presentation are now contained in the above resource collection. Clicking on the collection link will place it in your Learning Center, My Library, neatly organized under the My Resource Collections tab. During this seminar, Ms. Work discussed the impacts of climate change on human health. She introduced participants to the CHANGE Viewer, a web-based tool that allows users to work with data to assess the effects of warmer temperatures, more frequent droughts, and increased storm events on human communities across the globe. Then Ms. Steffen shared a variety of resources that teachers can access online, such as the Climate Change, Wildlife and Wildlands Toolkit, which contains case studies, activities, fact sheets, and a video.

oops forgot to mention the upcoming climate webinar which will surely have a few pertinent websites December 13, 2012 - Weather and Climate: Satellite Meteorology Go ahead and register and enjoy.

We used to have elective courses on Weather & Climate (tied together, like others), Geology, and Water on Earth. They have been repackaged/repurposed into a 2 trimester sequence of courses called Oceanography I and Oceanography II. As the complex interactions that occur between the atmosphere, the hydrosphere, and the geosphere are what determine climate (along with influences from the biosphere, of course!), this seemed much more logical to me. Plus, students were not signing up in sufficient numbers for the Geology and Weather & Climate courses to run. They always ran the Water on Earth course. Now they will get it all in a package that is more "marketable".

The Lawrence Hall of Science and UC Berkeley have a project going called Lifelines for High School Climate Change Education. At their website you can find a listing of courses that include units on climate change. It might be useful for you to see what others are doing. https://sites.google.com/a/globalsystemsscience.org/courses-lifelines/home

I took a really good climate change course through the American Meteorological Society recently. The course was great, free, and they awarded three graduate hours at no cost. All you have to do is contact your local or regional peer trainer to sign up. http://www.ametsoc.org/amsedu/ECS/index.html

UCAR's MetEd program also hosts a series of short web-based seminars on a variety of topics - including climate. The Datastreme courses are great, buut if something more asynchronous, taken when you can squeeze it into your schedule, fits your needs better, I would suggest trying some of these. https://www.meted.ucar.edu/training_detail.php?page=1&topic=2&language=1&orderBy=publishDateDesc

Here is a great site from UW-Madison for some online material. Just check out the modules that you want your students to focus on. There are worksheets that you can print out (of course, you can change them any way you want). http://cimss.ssec.wisc.edu/satmet/

Has anyone had their students produce a video for the Eco-Comedy Contest for the Sierra Club on YouTube? http://www.youtube.com/user/ecocomedy2013 I am thinking that would be a great way to engage my students and have them think about climate change.