This self-paced course on climate projections features sections on climate models, the water cycle, tropical climate, tipping points, global warming, and sea level rise.
This course contains text, interactive questions, infographics, links to references, current problems, and an assessment.
Teaching Tips
Positives
This course is very easy for students to navigate.
Students earn a certificate if they complete the course.
Students should have a basic understanding of climate change prior to beginning this course on climate predictions.
Students will need a computer and Internet connection to use the interactive features.
Differentiation
This course provides two levels of learning. Use the button in the top left of the page to toggle between "Simple" and "Advanced". The "Simple" setting is recommended for middle school students, while the "Advanced" setting is recommended for high school students.
Stronger students can spend time reading and exploring any of the links to actual scientific papers.
Students can proceed through this course at their own pace.
Cross-curricular connections could be made with social studies, geography, and civics classes when discussing the current and projected effects of climate change on human communities.
This could be a great resource for computer science or programming classes as well.
The resource outlines ways to monitor and predict the climate. Additional resources contain scenarios and variables used to model the climate. This is simplified and suitable for students to learn.
Standards
English Language Arts
Reading: Science & Technical Subjects (6-12)
6-8.RST.10 By the end of grade 8, read and comprehend science/technical texts in the grades 6-8 text complexity band independently and proficiently.
9-10.RST.10 By the end of grade 10, read and comprehend science/technical texts in the grades 9-10 text complexity band independently and proficiently.
11-12.RST.10 By the end of grade 12, read and comprehend science/technical texts in the grades 11-CCR text complexity band independently and proficiently.
Science
ESS2: Earth's Systems
HS.ESS2.2 Analyze geoscience data to make the claim that one change to Earth’s surface can create feedbacks that cause changes to other Earth systems.
HS.ESS2.4 Use a model to describe how variations in the flow of energy into and out of Earth’s systems result in changes in climate.
ESS3: Earth and Human Activity
6.ESS3.5 Ask clarifying questions based on evidence about the factors that have caused climate change over the past century.
HS.ESS3.5 Analyze geoscience data and the results from global climate models to make an evidence-based forecast of the current rate of global or regional climate change and associated future impacts to Earth’s systems.
HS.ESS3.6 Use a computational representation to illustrate the relationships among Earth systems and how those relationships are being modified due to human activity (i.e., climate change).
