This resource describes the evidence of climate change, presents a graph of carbon dioxide levels over the last 800,000 years, and provides many links to additional resources that support the information provided.
Students will learn about increasing temperatures, warming oceans, shrinking glaciers and ice sheets, sea level rise, ocean acidification, and extreme weather events.
Teaching Tips
Positives
This resource can provide flexibility in teaching about the evidence of climate change, as it has numerous links to extend learning.
The imagery, maps, and graphs are high quality and up to date.
Additional Prerequisites
Clicking on "+" and "More" in each section will open up additional information and resources.
Students should know how to read a graph.
Differentiation
This is a great introductory resource for general science and Earth science classes that are beginning to learn about climate change.
Chemistry classes can use this resource to expand on lessons about pH and buffering as relating to ocean acidification.
Cross-curricular connections can be made with physics classes when discussing heat capacity, energy flow, energy balance, and thermodynamics.
The content is accessible to many levels and is brief, so have students explore the additional links to extend this resource.
Other resources related to this topic include the Drivers of CO2 Emissions and Climate Change 1958, which shows the main drivers of carbon emissions and footage showing just how long we have known about this problem.
Scientist Notes
This resource offers unequivocal evidence that humans are causing climate change. From increasing global surface temperatures, warming oceans, to shrinking ice sheets and increased atmospheric carbon dioxide, the evidence is indisputable. This resource is recommended for teaching.
Standards
Science
ESS2: Earth's 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).
