Mila Zinkova
Climate Change Teacher Resources
Many educators are now finding opportunities to teach about Earth's climate and climate change in their classrooms. Windows to the Universe provides an interlinked learning ecosystem to a wealth of resources that support you on these topics, including online content for browsing or to support an introductory online course on climate change, teacher professional development resources, classroom activities, and online interactives. We provide links to these resources on this page, for your convenience, and will be updating the page regularly as new pages are added.
Climate Change Course: This page provides links to resources (including readings, activities, and presentations) on Windows to the Universe and elsewhere that can be included in an introductory climate change course, and will be updated regularly.
Online content for browsing: Visit the Climate and Global Change section of the website, which includes hundreds of pages on content on climate and climate change, including the following topics (each linking to extensive collections of additional pages of content):
- What is Climate?
- What Controls Climate?
- Paleoclimates
- Effects of Climate Change
- Earth's Polar Regions
- Clouds in Climate
- The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
- Slowing Global Warming
- Climate Models
Teacher Professional Development and Educational Resources: Links to professional development resources developed for K-12 teachers on climate change are provided below.
- Windows to the Universe Climate Change Web Seminars (archived)
- Climate Literacy Framework
- Windows to the Universe Online Climate Change Education Courses (while these courses are not being offered for credit now, many of the supporting resources for teachers are still available through this link)
- Related Next Generation Science Standards Performance Expections (search for Weather and Climate, Human Impacts on Earth Systems, and Global Climate Change)
- Climate Literacy and Energy Awareness Network (CLEAN)
- National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Climate.gov - Science and Information for a Science-Smart Nation
- National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Global Climate Change
- Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Climate Change
- NSF Climate Change - To What Degree?
- Skeptical Science
- Real Climate
- CO2 Now
- Scripps Institution of Oceanography Keeling Curve page
- National Academy of Sciences Resources for Teachers
- Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and Fourth Assessment Report Frequently Asked Questions (2007)
Classroom Activities on Climate Change: Windows to the Universe includes dozens of classroom activities on climate and global change. Links below go to the Climate and Global Change section of our Teacher Resources - Activities page as well as to the Our Changing Planet section of the website. Our Changing Planet includes 17 high quality brief videos on a variety of topics associated with climate and global change based on NSF research as well as an associated classroom activity that goes along with each video. The activities are substantial, data-rich activities for students in which they model scientific process skills.
- Climate and Global Change Classroom Activities (46 different activities)
- Our Changing Planet
Videos
- Fresh Water in the Arctic
- Ocean Temperatures
- Warming Lakes
- Melting Glaciers
- Thawing Permafrost
- Rising Sea Level
- Black Carbon
- Ocean Acidification
- Fading Corals
- Withering Crops
- Survival of Trees
- Bark Beetle Outbreaks
- Drought and Food (Grapevines)
- Warming and Genetics (Mosquitos)
- Warming and Reptiles (Lizards)
- Thermohaline Circulation - scroll down on this page for the video
- Adaptation of Butterflies to Warming
- Global Warming and Infectious Disease
- Amphibians Around the World are Dying (Flash and QuickTime movies)
- Animation of Annual Variation in Sea Ice Extent in the Northern Hemisphere (527 KB QuickTime movie)
- Animation of Annual Variation in Sea Ice Extent in the Southern Hemisphere (484 KB QuickTime movie)
- Building a Climate Model Grid (Flash and QuickTime movies)
- Degrees of Survival - MP3 audio podcast from NSF
- Exploring Ocean Dead Zones (Flash and QuickTime movies)
- Gasoline Plant - MP3 audio podcast from NSF
- Geoclimate: Probing Earth's Deep-Time Climate Archives - streaming RealVideo (23 min. 14 sec.) from NSF
- Global Atmospheric Circulation Model (Flash and QuickTime movies)
- The History of Early Polar Exploration - streaming RealVideo (11 min. 48 sec.) from NSF
- Reef Savers - MP3 audio podcast from NSF
Interactives
- The Very, Very Simple Climate Model
- Energy Choices and Climate Change Game
- Carbon Cycle Game (Flash)
- Climate of the Southeast Pacific (Flash)
- Compare Images of Arctic Sea Ice Extent Side-by-side
- Compare Images of Antarctic Sea Ice Extent Side-by-side
- Climate Crossword Puzzle
- "Build a Tree" Dendrochronology Activity
- Align Tree Ring Cores Activity
- Solar Radiation at Earth - scroll down on this page for an interactive that shows the effect of the Sun's brightness on Earth temperature, the effect of latitude on solar energy at the Earth's surface, and the seasons
Position Statements of Major Organizations on Climate Change
- American Geophysical Union
- American Meteorological Society
- American Association for the Advancement of Science
- Geological Society of America
