Younger students will love this colorful yet educational site on global warming and climate change. Easy to read factual information is included. Available in many different languages.
In this video segment adapted from the Yukon River Panel, visit fishing communities along the Yukon River and see how Alaska Native peoples exercise stewardship of salmon to ensure that it remains a central food source and cultural touchstone.
It's impossible to say that climate change is responsible for any individual storm or hurricane, but climate change is making these storms stronger. How much stronger? It turns out, Hurricane Harvey is the ideal test case to measure how a warming planet and warming oceans, amplify our worst storms. [3:19]
Planet Earth. It sure is beautiful, and it's also very unique and special, because under its thin atmosphere, it supports life. But there's a problem. Did you know that the Earth is sick? It has come down with a fever. In fact, the last ten years were the hottest ever recorded. This never-before-seen warming is part of something scientists call "Rapid Climate Change." [2:14]
During the past 200 years, the Earth has been doing a strange thing. It's warming up, and it's warming up fast. Warming that should have taken thousands of years has only taken a couple of hundred. [2:40]
Where does carbon dioxide - the gas that's mainly responsible for warming up our planet and changing the climate - come from? This video answers that important question. [2:49]
Students learn how a bill becomes law in the U.S. Congress and research legislation related to global warming.
Students explore how energy is transferred and how it can be converted into different forms, and learn about renewable and nonrenewable energy while looking towards the world’s energy future.
Introduce students to environmental issues by studying a time of rapid global warming that occurred 50 million years ago. Lessons, video segments and interactive activities will engage students as they learn about average annual temperatures during that time. They will use their mathematical skills to calculate percentages as they explore the interactive activity.
In a lesson in this issue of Smithsonian in Your Classroom, students do the work of a team of paleontologists studying a time of rising carbon dioxide and rapid global warming during the Eocene epoch. By examining fossils of tree leaves, and then incorporating the findings into a mathematical formula, they are able to tell average annual temperatures 55 million years ago. Really!
Through interactive and engaging learning site, students become the scientists and learn how to determine earth's temporal past.
How does energy flow in and out of our atmosphere? Explore how solar and infrared radiation enters and exits the atmosphere with an interactive model. Control the amounts of carbon dioxide and clouds present in the model and learn how these factors can influence global temperature. Record results using snapshots of the model in the virtual lab notebook where you can annotate your observations.
Scientists confirmed a West Antarctic ice sheet the size of the Dakotas is melting.
This article, written for students in grades 4-5, introduces the concept of albedo and describes the shrinking of Arctic sea ice. Modified versions are available for students in younger grades.
In this video profile produced for Teachers' Domain, meet conservationist Steve MacLean, an Inupiaq from Barrow, Alaska, who works to preserve the health of the Bering Sea ecosystem.
This short video explains how warmer temperatures in the Arctic are transforming the ecosystem and affecting the Athabaskan people, threatening their way of life. [2:59]
As the Earth's surface temperature gradually rises, it has become vital for us to predict the rate of this increase with as much precision as possible. In order to do that, scientists need to understand more about aerosols and clouds. Jasper Kirkby details an experiment at CERN that aims to do just that. [6:40]
This video segment from FRONTLINE/NOVA: "What's Up with the Weather?" depicts research efforts to record Earth's past and present temperatures shifts. [4:39]
Student teams use the engineering design process to create a useful product of their choice out of recyclable items and "trash." The class is given a "landfill" of reusable items, such as aluminum cans, cardboard, paper, juice boxes, chip bags, egg cartons, milk cartons, etc., and each group is allowed a limited amount of bonding materials, such as duct tape, hot glue and string. This activity addresses the importance of reuse and encourages students to look at ways they can reuse items they would otherwise throw away.