University of South Florida
CHANGE ProjectClimate Change Narrative Game EducationTeacher Notes: Introduction to Climate Change ScienceLesson Time: 50 Minutes22 minutes slides/28 minutes project Instructor Note: These notes include a “sample lesson” that is intended to provide an example of how this information could be presented to a classroom. The sample lesson is written in a conversational tone and often does not follow the normal rules of writing (we don’t talk the way we write). If you are very familiar with the topic, then the CHANGE team recommends that you quickly skim through the material to make sure there are no surprises or changes. If you relatively new to this material, then a more careful reading is in order.Each section of the lesson includes the anticipated time that you will spend on each subject (to the nearest minute, rounded up). The time estimates are intended as a tool to help you manage the classroom, and are not a hard and fast rule. If your students are asking very fruitful questions in a section that wasn’t allotted enough time, allow the questions (within reason). You can make this time up by asking fewer questions later or by abbreviating topics that were partially covered by the earlier questions.Sample LessonTEACHERS’s NOTE: This lesson is an introduction/overview of the field and state of climate science. Be prepared to answer questions, but avoid going too deeply into the details. Several slides (4 Climate Myth slides) only need a 30 second explanation for the students to see the trends and fundamentally understand why those are myths. The intent is to help the students think scientifically. Let them see the evidence, then they will convince themselves of the truth..Overview: (est. time: 3 min)Everybody talks about climate change, but did you realize that climate change is its own science with actual scientists devoting their careers to understanding it? Before we start talking about it, we’re going to watch a quick video that talks about the difference between climate and weather.Click on Link to launch YouTube Video (2:11 playtime)Teacher’s Note: Video discusses how weather is given limits by climate (like a dog on a leash) Weather Versus Climate (est. time: 1 min)Weather is specific to a date, time and location. When you see the local weather forecast, you inherently know that it’s unreliable. It’s very rare that the weatherman will say anything with certainty. Instead he’ll use phrases like, “a 30% chance of rain in the afternoon.” Not only is he not sure that it will actually rain, but he can’t even give a specific time for when it may or may not rain. Of course, there are some weathermen that try to be too specific, but they are the reason we don’t trust them.Climate Change Science (est. time: 2 min)It wasn’t until the early 1800’s that scientists realized that there must have been glaciers across the northern parts of the Northern Hemisphere. Large scale striations, like the grooves in the rock on the left side, as well as huge erratic boulders that are only known to have been caused by glaciers were seen virtually everywhere they looked. This meant only one thing: The Northern Hemisphere and probably the whole planet used to be much, much colder.Every nation’s economy is tied very closely to the climate for agriculture, tourism, etc. So as you would expect, nations with the means began to study the climate.QUESTION: What questions about climate change do you think they had in the 1800’s? ANTICIPATED RESPONSE: They wanted to know what caused it.TEACHER FEEDBACK: Probably. Any scientist worth their salt wants to understand why things behave the way they do.ANTICIPATED RESPONSE: Was the Earth still warming up?TEACHER FEEDBACK: That’s a great question. At the time, they would have known from historical records that the Middle East used to be much wetter and that most of the Fertile Crescent had gradually turned into an arid desert.ANTICIPATED RESPONSE: Is global warming even a real thing?TEACHER FEEDBACK: This is definitely a question that would have been asked. Geologists see grooves in the rocks, and therefore climate change?!? If I were paying the scientists’ salaries, I’d either want more evidence or I’d tell them to work on something else. ANTICIPATED RESPONSE: Is there anything that we can do about it?TEACHER FEEDBACK: That’s definitely a good question. This would have been at a time before they knew it was a problem, but they knew they would eventually find whether or not climate change was still occurring. No matter what the answer to that was, there would be profound implications.Some of these same questions that people are asked by people today. For some of the questions, climate scientists have definite answers, while other questions are only answered with more questions. We spend a lot of time and money studying the climate, and the more we learn about it, the more important we realize that it is.What Causes Climate Change? (est. time: 3 min)Most climate graphs and charts start around 1880 because that’s when we really start to have access to global climate data. Expeditions with scientists were being sent to remote locations, including the open oceans and Antarctica, gathering data that’s still referenced today. When we went to the moon, we took scientific measurements, made observations and then brought back samples. The explorers of the 1800’s wouldn’t have been any different.This graph shows how much the average global temperature has changed, up or down, since we started keeping track. As of when this material was prepared (mid-2015), the warmest year was 2014, with the 10 warmest happening since 1998. The natural question you might ask is how good the data is. Even by today’s standards, the land measurements taken in the 1800’s were great, capturing the daily highs and lows in both urban and rural environments. The major trade routes were by sea, and a ship’s captain would have routinely recorded weather events because it was in his own interests to help scientists predict the weather. Since the 1950’s we’ve had a permanent scientific presence in Antarctica and since the 1970’s we’ve had weather satellites collecting data over every square kilometer of the globe.QUESTION: We’re going to talk about the scientific data behind some climate myths and facts. Whether or not you’re sure it’s true, what are some of the things that you’ve heard causes climate change? ANTICIPATED RESPONSE: The temperature in the cities has gotten warmer because of the roads, fires, etc. But the temperature out in the countryside probably hasn’t changed at all.TEACHER FEEDBACK: I’ve heard that a lot, too. They call that effect the urban heat islands. What else have you heard people say?ANTICIPATED RESPONSE: I’ve heard that the Sun has been getting a lot hotter, and that’s why we’re warming up.TEACHER FEEDBACK: Historically, there is really good evidence that solar activity can affect our climate.ANTICIPATED RESPONE: Carbon dioxide (or methane or other greenhouse gas)TEACHER FEEDBACK: Greenhouse gases, that’s a good one.ANTICIPATED RESPONSE: Volcanoes emit carbon dioxide and make it warmer (or Volcanic ash blocks the Sun, making it cooler, but volcanic activity is declining).TEACHER FEEDBACK: A volcano could definitely ruin your day.ANTICIPATED RESPONSE: It’s just a natural cycle of the Earth because our orbit goes through a 26,000 year cycle.TEACHER FEEDBACK: The part of our planet that points at the Sun surely has a measureable effect.Now let’s try to sort our which of those ideas are myths and which ones are facts.TEACHER’s NOTE: The students may have some fringe ideas, however nearly all of them can be explored with the data in the following slides. A great resource that scientifically explores over 150 climate myths and facts is: : Urban Heat Islands (est. time: 30 seconds)The idea behind urban heat islands is that climate change isn’t real or that it isn’t as severe as we think because the data is being distorted. A lot of people assume that when rural areas become urbanized, that the long term climate data will look warmer than it should. The data on the left shows that there really is no significant difference when you replace large open fields with shopping malls. But, even better, the map on the right is based on satellite data and unless polar bears and Siberian lynx’s started building factories, this hypothesis is busted.Myth: Solar Activity (est. time: 30 seconds)The average solar output on the bottom has been going down for the last 25 years while the temperature is still going up. In order for solar activity to be the cause of the modern climate change, you’d have to be able to turn down the heat in the oven and expect the temperature to rise anyway. BustedMyth: Natural Earth Cycles (est. time: 30 seconds)TEACHERS’s NOTE: This graph could be useful to talk about many of the long term natural cycles (i.e. Earth’s orbital precession, or some long-term solar cycles we aren’t aware of, etc.). All of our long range data (ocean sediments, geologic samples) across the globe show this pattern as far as they go back to at least a million years. If a student talks about some other rapid climate change in the past, their source was making it up because there is no controversial scientific data here.About every 100,000 years, the Earth warms at 1 degree per 1,000 years for about 10,000 years. After the temperature peaks, it drops back down to something like the modern climate and then slowly drops back into a new ice age. In the current interglacial cycle, we started warming about 18,000 years ago and peaked about 8,000 years ago. Based on the evidence, the long term cycles say we should be cooling right now and getting ready to enter a new ice age. Busted.Volcanoes (est. time: 30 seconds) Volcanoes are a double edged sword. Not only do they pump out tons of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, but they also pump out ash and aerosols that block the Sun to cool the Earth. Both the world’s historic climate data and lab experiments show that volcanoes actually cause a net cooling effect. Despite increased volcanic activity since the mid-1900’s our temperature is still going up. Busted.Fact: Greenhouse Gases (est. time: 4 min)Of course you knew that I’d eventually come around to greenhouse gases. This one is the real kicker, and we’ve got a lab experiment in a few minutes that will prove it. Let’s watch a quick video that talks about how greenhouse gases work.Click on Link to launch YouTube Video (1:55 playtime)Teacher’s Note: Video discusses how greenhouse gases trap Sun’s energy on the Earth.When I look at the pie chart on the right, am I the only one that’s surprised that fossil fuel power plants are the number one source of greenhouse gases?QUESTION: What are some things that we should do to reduce greenhouse gases?ANTICIPATED RESPONSE: Use less electricity, air conditioner, lights, etc.TEACHER FEEDBACK: It’s always good to only use what you need, but what about the power plants themselves?ANTICIPATED RESPONSE: Use Solar energyTEACHER FEEDBACK: That’s right! You can have the same electricity with virtually no greenhouse gases if we start using more solar, nuclear, wind and other renewable resources.ANTICIPATED RESPONSE: CarpoolTEACHER FEEDBACK: Of course, transportation is a close second. Carpooling and using more efficient cars like the new hybrids will significantly reduce greenhouse gases.It looks like everyone has a pretty good handle on the causes of climate change, so we’re going to change gears a quickly look at why we care.Weather Patterns (est. time: 1 min)Some places are getting a little hotter, while others are getting a little colder, but humans are pretty resilient, right? Well, there’s more to it than that. Droughts have now become a routine state of affairs in the western United States.QUESTION: How does a severe drought on the West Coast affect us here in Florida?ANTICIPATED RESPONSE: I feel bad for them, but it doesn’t really affect us here.TEACHER FEEDBACK: You must not be a big fan of meat and dairy products. By itself, California produces almost as much dairy as the next two states combined.ANTICIPATED RESPONSE: People will start moving away.TEACHER FEEDBACK: That’s a good assumption, things will get more and more expensive out there, and while people might not move away, fewer new people will move there to look for work in a place they know they can’t afford.And, of course, there is also always the federal aid that we pay in federal taxes to help those states deal with the problem.Melting Ice (est. time: 1 min)The glaciers and sea ice that people used to think were permanent are melting all over the world. The planet’s biggest pieces of ice are the glaciers in Greenland and Antarctica and the Arctic sea ice at the North Pole. If polar bears were intelligent, they would certainly care about the rapidly shrinking Arctic sea ice, but the reason that it makes the news is that it is undeniable evidence that our planet is changing.Even though there’s a lot of ice in the Arctic, the sea level won’t change at all when it melts. That’s because the amount of ice below the waterline takes up exactly the same volume as the water it forms when it melts. If you buy a soda at the drive through, put it in the cup holder and let it sit for a while, is it going to come pouring out the top as the ice melts?Glaciers, on the other hand, are bad news when they melt. Since they’re sitting on dry land, when they melt new water is being added to the ocean, causing the sea level to rise. If the glaciers on Greenland continue melting, they will add about 7 meters of sea level rise over the next couple centuries.Ocean Warming (est. time: 2 min)We know the air is warming, so it shouldn’t be a surprise that the ocean is warming, too. Anyone that goes out on the water a lot knows that warm water brings algal blooms that kill off the fish, but let’s look at the less intuitive things.If you’ve ever checked the fluids on a car, you know that dipsticks are either marked with hot and cold lines, or they say “check when hot,” because oil expands when it gets warm. Water doesn’t expand nearly as much, and we’re only talking about a couple degrees of change, so we aren’t talking about anything like your engine’s oil, right? Well, there’s a whole lot of ocean out there, and that little bit of expansion adds up. And for every degree Celsius that the ocean warms, the sea level rises by about a foot. Ouch!The other major effect of the warming ocean is that it increases hurricane intensity. The right side shows that the intensity of hurricanes is directly proportional to the ocean’s surface temperature. Climate change isn’t causing more storms each year, but it makes the ones we get much worse.Ocean Acidification (est. time: 2 min)Technically, ocean acidification isn’t an effect of global warming, it’s another bad side effect of the carbon dioxide we’re pumping into our atmosphere. When we talk about ocean acidification, we aren’t talking about it turning into battery acid or something you’d use in the chemistry lab. We’re talking about an acidity level that’s less significant than most fruits and all carbonated beverages.When carbon dioxide dissolves in water, some of it turns into the weak carbonic acid. This is how they make carbonated beverages and what gives them the extra tang that most of us like. Unfortunately, the shells of crustaceans will dissolve and fish start finding it really hard to breathe long before the acidity gets anywhere near what you like to have in your Coke.QUESTION: I’ve heard some cleaver ideas about putting solar shades in space or deliberately pumping aerosols into the atmosphere like volcanoes do in order to fight global warming. What’s the problem with these ideas?ANTICIPATED RESPONSE: They help us, but they don’t help the fish.TEACHER FEEDBACK: You’re at least three quarters right. It isn’t just fish that will be affected. The ocean is where most of our oxygen comes from, and if disrupt it too much, we’re in trouble.Summary (est. time: 1 min)Before we move on to the lab, does anyone have questions about what we just talked about? There’s a ton of websites that go as far into the details as you can imagine on this stuff. We’ve been looking at climate change for generations now, so if you hear someone’s new favorite hypothesis, I’d be willing to bet that there’s already data out there that either proves or disproves it. If the idea sounds solid, but the data doesn’t back it up, then that’s all it was; a good idea that wasn’t supported by the data. ................
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