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This collection of resources helps you explore the ideas of global climate change, greenhouse gases, sustainability, and resource conservation in your classroom and beyond.
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Lessons
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K-2 | Hands-On
In this lesson, students will probe the problem of what happens to a battery-operated flashlight when it is not turned off.
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3-5 | Hands-On
In this lesson, students distinguish between renewable and nonrenewable sources of energy while comparing the benefits and drawbacks of each.
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3-5 | Video
This lesson should help students understand both the physical forces behind climate change, and the social responses to it as a means to preserve the health of people, the state of cities, island nations, and organisms.
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3-5 | Interactive
In this lesson, students compare and contrast different energy sources and the trade-offs of using them.
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3-5 | Hands-On
This lesson shows that products and objects have lifespans so we need to recycle, reuse, and re-imagine new purposes for them.
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6-8
This lesson focuses less on the science and more on the actual work of saving endangered species.
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6-8
In this lesson, students will learn about the sources of the energy that supply their community.
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6-8 | Audio
The lesson introduces students to the scientific basis of climate change.
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6-8 | Video
This lesson provides students with an opportunity to explore the climate change concept in greater depth.
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6-8 | Website
In this lesson, students will use Internet resources to investigate renewable sources of energy.
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9-12
In this lesson, students explore how scientific knowledge changes in the context of abrupt climate change.
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9-12
In this student-centered learning model, students work collaboratively in small teams to design a heat- and water-conserving “green roof” of plant material for an urban apartment building.
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9-12 | Video
In this lesson, students learn about organism interactions and how those interactions shift in response to climate change, especially in grassland communities.
Tools
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6-12 | Video
This 12-minute video produced by AAAS features a number of experts on global climate change talking about its impacts to our planet.
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K-12 | Teaching Aid
SB&F has put together a list of our top environmental books to help the consumer make informed, eco-friendly choices and to encourage children to take an active role in saving the environment.
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K-8 | Video
NASA's climate change site for kids asks and answers important questions relating to climate change as well as providing entertaining career insights, online games, videos, and hands-on activities.
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3-8 | Interactive
This interactive challenges students to think about the positive and negative consequences of various types of power.
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6-12 | Interactive
Project BudBurst is part of a citizen science program designed to encourage local participation in a national research effort.
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6-8 | Interactive
Explore how different factors work together to produce both your local community's day-to-day weather and the overall climate for your region of the world.
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9-12 | Video
What We Know is an assessment of current climate science and impacts that emphasizes the need to understand and recognize possible high-risk scenarios.
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6-12 | Website
This booklet focuses on women in five areas of "green science": environmental responsibility, biotechnology, biodiversity, sustainability, and medicines.
Science Updates
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6-12 | Audio
As climate change heats up the world's ecosystems, many species of plants and animals, from songbirds to whales, are leaving their time-tested home ecosystems for uncharted territory. This Science Update looks at how some plants are changing altitude to find a cooler place to live.
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6-12 | Audio
Carbon gases are prime culprits in global warming. One study suggests we're making even more of them than we thought. You can learn why in this Science Update.
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6-12 | Audio
According to a landmark study in the journal Science, climate change is transforming the world's oceans, at a potentially huge cost. You'll hear more about it in this Science Update.
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6-12 | Audio
Climate change may precipitate violence, according to a historical analysis.
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6-12 | Audio
Earth’s changing climate may already be playing a role in today’s conflicts.
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6-12 | Audio
Human activities like farming have contributed some amount of greenhouse gas to the atmosphere for ages
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6-12 | Audio
Learn about a thirty-year plan to replace 70 percent of our fossil fuels, using only current technologies like storable solar power, safer nuclear plants, and methanol from crop waste.
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6-12 | Audio
This Science Update explores why pollution from cities could dry out nearby mountains.
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6-12 | Audio
In this Science Update, learn why human sources of nitrogen may be just as environmentally costly as carbon emissions.
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6-12 | Audio
Once the Earth warms to a critical temperature, permafrost in Siberia will melt, releasing massive amounts of carbon.
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6-12 | Audio
One of the biggest environmental worries is global warming, which is caused by greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide. In this Science Update, you'll hear how dirt might help fight it.
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6-12 | Audio
In this Science Update, hear how researches are using Henry David Thoreau's plant journals to study climate change.
Videos
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6-12 | Video
Rebecca Lyland takes us on a GoPro adventure to study soil in the desert, grasslands, and pine forests of Arizona.
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6-12 | Video
This video was made by Danielle Balistrieri, a college student who participated in grasslands research in California.
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6-12 | Video
This video was made by Danielle Balistrieri, a college student who participated in grasslands research in California, and discusses the results of their research.
Collections
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K-12
This collection of Science NetLinks lessons and resources will help teachers and students prepare for the celebration of Earth Day.
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6-12
With support from the Lemelson Foundation, this collection offers an introduction to invention education, with an emphasis on thinking critically about environmental implications.
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K-12
This collection focuses on different types of weather and the natural forces that cause them.
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K-12
These resources help students explore the ideas of light pollution, energy conservation, and global climate change in your classroom and beyond.
AAAS Resources
AAAS Climate Change Resources
Grade Band: 6-12
Description: AAAS is one of the scientific leaders on the issue of global climate change. Background materials on AAAS efforts related to climate change and links to relevant resources are provided here.
The Science of the Ozone Layer
Grade Band: 6-12
Description: A blog post from Science NetLinks explores the crucial role the ozone layer plays in protecting the earth and why its preservation is considered a successful example of international scientific diplomacy.
Other Resources
A Student's Guide to Global Climate Change
Grade Band: 6-8
Description: Created by the EPA, these seven lesson plans offer hands-on learning on topics ranging from the impact on rising C0₂ levels on corals to mapping greenhouse gases locally to using tree rings as a historical guide to climate change.
Green Living
Grade Band: 6-12
Description: This Danish site rose out of the U.N. Climate Change Conference being held in Copenhagen in 2009. Information about the nation's quest for independence from fossil fuels can be found here.
GlobalChange.gov
Grade Band: 9-12
Description: The U.S. Global Change Research Program is the governmental office commissioned with explaining how we understand, assess, predict, and respond to human-induced and natural processes of global change. Their site offers comprehensive reports, infographics, images, and plain-language explanations of climate change and the research around it. Educators will find a section devoted specifically to their needs under the Browse tab. The FAQ, found under the Explore tab, is also may be useful.
Global Climate Change: Vital Signs of the Planet
Grade Band: 9-12
Description: NASA created this site to provide the public with accurate and timely news and information about Earth’s changing climate, along with current data and visualizations obtained from satellites and other NASA resources.
U.N. and Climate Change
Grade Band: 6-12
Description: The Secretary-General of the United Nations has called climate change the "greatest collective challenge facing humankind today" as well as "greatest opportunity for common progress towards a sustainable future." Nearly 40 U.N. agencies and programs focus in some part on climate change, and its Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change regularly analyzes and releases a summary of current international scientific thought on related issues
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