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General Science and Teaching

Global Warming

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Loren Weybright Loren Weybright 970 Points

Students (eighth grade) in Prajwal (Elementary) School, Hetauda, Nepal, and students in Genesee Elementary School, Auburn, NY are enrolled in the Know My World (knowmyworld.org) student exchange program. I am in Nepal, consulting with the principal, who is coordinating the program at his school.

Library Research questions are:

What is global warming, and how is the climate and the world changing?

What are the effects of Global Warming?

How does it affect my city/region?

What can students do to help solve it, and educate others?

Our Nepali 8th grade students have little experience using a search engine for such research. What links and activities can you suggest for our study?

 

Emily Faulconer Emily Faulconer 5755 Points

https://climatekids.nasa.gov/climate-change-meaning/ 

Jessica Holman Jessica Holman 2170 Points

Loren, I love this initiative and how we can show our students how connected we all are across the globe. One suggestion is to use the program livebinder - http://www.livebinders.com/ as a place to house several different web pages for your kids to explore. This way you can use the site to create a place for your kids to go to and they can use it as a resource. 

The issue is that you will have to front-load it with the websites but you can check out through Nasa and through the national geographic as well as resources through the UN may be helpful resources to direct your students towards. 

George Mehler George Mehler 1575 Points

Hello fellow science teacher,
 
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Rhonda Adams Rhonda Adams 3481 Points

Not sure what your curriculum is before 8th grade, but here in Utah I found it necessary to cover first energy production and what causes CO2 emissions.  Then use lots of graphs showing the link between CO2 and temperature levels.  All of which can be found on multiple websites.  Once the kids see the connection between CO2 and temperatures, then it was necessary to do another unit on how our weather occurs linking all aspects of climate and weather like ocean currents, water cycle, etc., and then I have students do a research project of what causes different types of climates with biome projects.  Once that is finished, it's fairly easy for them to start to connect the aspect of global warming to climate change.  But I found it also important to cover the aspect that climates have changed naturally throughout the history of our planet.  They have heard both sides of the argument, but there is just so much out there for them to pick through it gets difficult to determine what is accurate and what is not.  I have been teaching this unit for over 4 years and the students still don't have a strong grasp of what the concept is, but they are all questioning more about what they are reading and hearing in their lives by the time we're finished.  My hope is that future schooling for them will start to fill in the holes.  There is simply to much to cover in one year for the concept.  If you need any resources, feel free to ask.  You have a tremendous amount of knowledge on this forum I'm sure.  

Rhonda Adams Rhonda Adams 3481 Points

Forgot to mention that I also incorporate an alternative energy production unit into this.  Gives the kids hope.  There is a NASA CO2 emission video that shows how the planet is capable of healing itself. 

Here's a link to the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x1SgmFa0r04

I also show this video of the argument on climate change from a professor who breaks down the argument into three groups of people.  The kids realize when they are finished that they have been listening to group 3.  Kind of interesting how they begin to change their mindset and get more critical of what they're being told. 

Here's a link to that video as well: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OwqIy8Ikv-c

Hope it helps.  Good luck.

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