DR K-12 project Confronting the Challenges of Climate Literacy, known as the EarthLabs project, will host 2 week-long workshops this summer for high school teachers in Austin, TX and Starkville, MS. Workshop participants will learn about three new high school curriculum modules developed by the project (topics listed below) and how the modules can be incorporated into science classes. The curriculum modules are Web-based and are designed to enhance classroom learning by allowing students to explore the topics in a variety of modes, including hands-on activities, video interviews with scientists, group work, self-guided examination of scientific data, and class discussions.
To learn more about the EarthLabs project, visit: http://serc.carleton.edu/earthlabs/index.html
Curriculum Module Topics:
* Climate and the Cryosphere: Earth’s Frozen Waters
How do Earth’s glaciers, ice bergs, and ice sheets affect Texas’ climate? The complexity of Earth’s interconnected system is highlighted in this module as students learn about the cryosphere’s dynamic nature and the positive and negative feedback systems that play a critical role in shaping our planet’s climate.
* Climate, Weather, and the Biosphere
Earth’s atmosphere not only provides us with life-supporting oxygen; it helps maintain our planet’s temperature range, which shapes life on Earth as we know it. Students learn about various temporal and spatial scales at which weather and climate occur, and the interactions of the Earth’s system at local, regional, and global scales that drive our weather and shape our climate.
* Climate and the Carbon Cycle
Carbon cycles through the Earth system on time scales that vary from fractions of a second to hundreds of thousands of years, and is as essential to the phytoplankton as it is to the Giant Sequoia. Air bubbles from ice cores reveal the dynamic history of atmospheric carbon across the past 600,000 years, and help scientists establish the long-term history of the carbon-climate connection.