Climate Change Lesson 3

Continuing the Data Dive

Summary: This lesson asks students to think about the effects of increased temperatures, reflect on the carbon dioxide graphs that were constructed yesterday, and analyze the relationship between increased carbon dioxide levels and increased temperatures.

Lesson Components:

Activity	Students will...	Indiana State Standard Addressed (*8.ESS.1)
Climate Web	organize the effects of increased temperatures on biotic and abiotic factors	SEPS.4, 6-7 6.LS.4
Carbon Dioxide Graphs Debrief	analyze graphs for similarities and differences	SEPS.4, 5, 8
Carbon Dioxide Data Compilation Video	analyze the relationship between carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere and global temperatures	SEPS.4 & 5 6-8.LST.4.3

Teacher’s Homework:

• Please visit https://ourclimateourfuture.org/videos/ and watch the videos for Chapters 2, 3 and 4. This should take just under 15 minutes.

Other Helpful Lesson-Specific Info:

Biologists, chemists, physicists, meteorologists, and many other scientists have all contributed to the collection and analysis of climate data. In addition to these scientists, engineers, policy makers, teachers, and everyday citizens all play a crucial role in helping to mitigate the effects of climate change. Activities in this lesson seek to help students start to piece together the data they collected during their data dive, and identify cause and effect relationships. This lesson is to serve as a bridge between the “symptoms” scientists have noticed the earth is experiencing (higher temperatures, less ice, precipitation changes, etc.) and the reason for the symptoms: carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere.

Lesson Set-Up: Load the videos and locate the “decks” of cards used in this lesson before class. Additionally, have ready access to the class graph that was made during the data dive.

Activity: Climate Web/Data Dive Debrief

Purpose: In making a concept web, the idea is that students get a chance to see how the pieces of data they collected yesterday impact one another and other effects they haven’t yet been given the opportunity to consider.

Set-Up: Students will be given a “deck” of laminated cards. The cards will need to be spread out and organized on a desk, table or floor.

Procedure:

• Ask for a few volunteers to state some things they learned yesterday, some trends that surprised them, or to ask any questions that they may have left class thinking about.
  • Now might be a good time to address a misconception that was present in Wordles (Day 1 activity) and might have been addressed in the data dive.

• Introduce students to the concept map that they are about to put together, emphasizing that the goal of this activity is to think about cause and effect. Below is a sample intro:
  • “As we are starting to see, there are a lot of moving parts to this climate change puzzle. To start today, we are going to think about the causes and effects of climate change. Each group (no more than 3 kids) has a packet of cards, somewhere in that packet should be a card labeled “the earth is getting warmer.” take this card and place it on your workspace.”
  • Explain that the rest of the cards are labeled with effects of increased temperature. Some of these effects you learned about in the data dive, others may have came up in the jigsaw from earlier this week, and some may be completely new to you. There is more than one right way to put this concept map together. The idea is that we link causes and effects. This can be done by placing cards next to one another. Use arrows to connect cards.
  • There are many different ways to do this.Students should be able to provide evidence or logic for their reasoning.

• After about 15 minutes, make a concept map up on the board as a class.
  • Which connections are we confident in?
    • These should be the ones students have data dive info to support.
  • Which connections are we not as confident in? Do we think these are still realistic? *
    • “Carbon dioxide levels are increasing” is probably the card that’s going to give students the hardest time. Ask them about where they put it and why they put it where they did.

Activity: Carbon Dioxide Graphs Debrief

Purpose: In reviewing the group carbon dioxide graphs from yesterday and then comparing them to the class graph, students will discuss the importance of consistent data points and sampling size. It should be noted that changes in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is the cause of climate change. Talking about CO₂ graphs doesn’t just get students to reflect on the way we portray data, but also starts to point to the importance of this greenhouse gas.

Set-Up: Students need their Data Dive packet and graphs from Day 2.

Procedure:

• Volunteers share their carbon dioxide graph from yesterday.
  • How are these graphs similar?
  • How are they different?
  • Is there enough data on any of the graphs to gather a good conclusion?
• Compare student graphs with the big class graph.
  • How are they similar/different?
  • Which one offers a stronger argument? Why?
    • Expected answer: students will likely say the class graph is more accurate… there are more data points.
      • Why is it important that we take data consistently?
        • How else are we going to have data to compare it to?

Activity: Carbon Dioxide Data Compilation Video

Purpose: One of the primary reasons scientists believe that carbon dioxide is the largest culprit behind climate change is because the numbers we are seeing are so drastically different from any other time in history. The goal of this video is to show how different scientists have pieced together carbon dioxide data to figure out its history on the planet.

Set-Up: Load the video at https://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/history.html
prior to the start of class.

Procedure:

• The data students graphed yesterday was over a 10 year time period. Even though we had more certainty in the class graph, which had over 100 data points, to make a scientific claim, there needs to be a lot more data over a longer period of time.
• All our current class graph tells us is that carbon dioxide levels are increasing, it doesn’t tell us if this is common. The only way we would know if this is common is if we had more data to compare it to.
• Students will watch a short clip that compiles many scientists’ data together over a long period of time. There is a lot going on in this video. Below is a list of notes and questions to help guide you and your students through the video.
• It might help to go through the questions below the first time you show the video to your students, pausing for questions. Then have students watch the video again one more time uninterrupted.

Helping students get comfortable with the data in the video:

• Before we start the video, let’s get acquainted with this graph.
• This graph is going to walk through all of the data we have on the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, both past and present. This way, we can see how what’s going on today compares to previous trends.
• On the bottom of the screen, you will see two different axes. On the left is a big graph, and on the x axis is latitude lines. The video will plot carbon dioxide levels as they are throughout the world, at different latitudes.
• The smaller graph on the right hand side tracks time averages of these carbon dioxide levels over time.
• Above the smaller graph is a little clock-looking thing. This spins and reveals what season it is.

As the video progresses, some good discussion questions include:

Guided Question	Target Answer	Connections & Transitions
Why do carbon dioxide levels always get higher in the winter, and are lower in the summer? Why is there that jagged curve around 30 seconds?	In the summer, plants are taking in carbon dioxide to make sugar. In the winter in the northern hemisphere, tree leaves fall off.
Do the red and blue lines tell us different information? Do they share the same trend?	They come from two different sources, two different locations. The blue is the south pole and the red is hawaii. Yes they share the same trend.
As time goes on, there seems to be more points on the graph, more samples. Why do you suppose this is?	We became more aware of the importance of tracking climate data.	At 2 minutes, the graph starts to add Keeling’s data. Keeling is a famous scientist who collected carbon dioxide data at Mauna Loa in Hawaii, and was the first to realize that carbon dioxide levels were increasing steadily.
		The orange, brown and blue data points that follow reflect carbon dioxide info that was figured out my analyzing ice cores.
At 3 minutes, it becomes clear that carbon dioxide levels routinely rise and fall, but over long periods of time. What was the peak for these carbon levels?	between 250 and 300 parts per million (ppm)
How much carbon dioxide was is in the atmosphere in January of 2016?	403 ppm	Has there ever been a sharp increase in carbon dioxide levels like we are experiencing today? **No, it’s unprecedented.

After the video, reemphasize the following points:

• Carbon dioxide levels are higher than they have ever been, and they’ve increased at a rate much faster than scientists think has ever happened on Earth before.
• Ask students why they think levels have increased as much as they did.

Activity: Recommended Exit Slip

Exit Slip: Why is “climate change” a more accurate description of the changes we are seeing on our planet instead of the term “global warming”?²

Target Answer: As a whole, our earth is warming. So yes, the globe is warming. Climate change is a better description, though, because this temperature increase is just ONE out of many ways that climate is changing. Global warming doesn’t encompass precipitation changes, like rain, hurricanes, and drought.


Resources:

1. Adapted from the Great Lakes Climate Change Curriculum https://melinda-cms-files.s3.amazonaws.com/application/pdf/65426d43-8597-4621-8fcd-ffcf7f66331c.pdf?response-content-disposition=inline%3B%20filename%3D%22OHSU-EP-1529_Great-Lakes-Climate-Change-Curriculum.pdf%22&AWSAccessKeyId=AKIAITRSJ4WSD4PFN74Q&Expires=1558487607&Signature=fosfo2p%2B1vVKeeTVFEoKnaV2iOU%3D
2. Exit slip question Adapted from https://www.chicagobotanic.org/downloads/nasa/Unit_2_Grades_7-9_Activity_2-3_ClimateChangeAroundTheWorld.pdf

 

Climate Web Phrases and Cards

The earth is getting warmer.
Sea ice is melting.
Land ice is melting.
Sea level is getting higher.
Cities on the coast are vulnerable to the increasing sea levels.
The Great Lakes region is getting warmer.
The Great Lakes region is getting more rain than it has in the past.
The Great Lakes is receiving less snow than it has in the past.
Less lake ice is freezing over in the winter.
Winter doesn’t last as long.
Temperatures during the winter aren’t as cold.
The growing season is getting longer.
The summers are getting hotter.
The lake levels are lower in the summer than they have been in the past.
There is more flooding.
The storms are more frequent and intense.
Spring starts earlier.
Plants bud earlier.
Less bugs die off during the winter.
More bugs in the summer.
The birds are migrating back earlier.
The bird arrival and bud blooming may not be as in sync with one another.
Invasive species do better with shorter, less cold winters.
Native species struggle when they experience drought.
Native species struggle when the winter doesn’t get as cold and when it snows less.
Native species are outcompeted by invasive species.
Frogs are calling earlier in the spring.
Carbon dioxide levels are increasing.

The earth is getting warmer.	Sea ice is melting.	Land ice is melting.
Sea level is getting higher.	Cities on the coast are vulnerable to the increasing sea levels.	The Great Lakes region is getting warmer.
The Great Lakes region is getting more precipitation than it has in the past.	The Great Lakes are receiving less snow than it has in the past.	The Great Lakes are receiving more rain in the fall and winter than they have in the past.
Less ice is freezing over on the Great Lakes in the winter.	Winter is getting shorter.	Temperatures during the winter aren’t as cold as they used to be.
The growing season for crops is getting longer.	The summers are getting hotter.	The Great Lake water levels are lower in the summer than they have been in the past.
There is more flooding in the fall, winter and spring.	The rain storms are more frequent and intense.	Carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere are increasing throughout the globe.
Spring starts earlier than it has in the past.	Plants bud earlier.	Less bugs die off during the winter.
Bug populations are higher in the summer.	The birds are migrating back earlier.	The bird arrival and bud blooming may not be as in sync with one another.
Invasive species do better with shorter, less cold winters.	Native species struggle when they experience drought.	Native species struggle when the winter doesn’t get as cold and when it snows less.
Native species are outcompeted by invasive species.	Frogs are calling earlier in the spring.