This resource is based on the 2015 Climate Change Summit, and it shares both environmental and social concerns related to climate change. This is an activity for elementary school students to role-play. It is a UN-style discussion of climate change from different cultures and perspectives around the world.

Students investigate how much greenhouse gas (carbon dioxide and methane) their family releases into the atmosphere each year and relate it to climate change. To address this, students use the Environmental Protection Agency Personal Emissions Calculator to estimate their family's greenhouse gas emissions and to think about how their family could reduce those emissions.

This activity allows students to make El Nino in a container, but it might work better as a teacher demonstration. The introduction and information provided describe El Nino, its processes and its effects on weather elsewhere in the world.

This lesson guides students to connect the PBS Adaptation video series on climate adaptation to their own community. Students describe their community, identify climate impacts faced by their community, research how their community is adapting to those impacts, and then create a digital story about what they found.

SYNOPSIS: In this lesson, students discover, share, and evaluate what young people around the globe are doing to address climate change and utilize this information as the basis for a portrait.

SCIENTIST NOTES: This lesson plan includes information about youth climate activists and their motivation and actions for addressing climate change around the world. The video is short, focuses on the activists' individual motivation behind taking climate action, and introduces the idea of climate justice. The information presented in the provided articles links to information and other news articles where needed. The profiles on the climate activists may get outdated over time but are still useful for the lesson. This resource is recommended for teaching.

POSITIVES:
-Students are introduced to a diverse range of global youth climate leaders.
-Students learn that climate activism includes environmental justice.
-Students begin to identify ways that they, as young people, have agency in the fight against climate change and climate inequities.
-Students learn how to use a global issue as the source of their subsequent artwork.

ADDITIONAL PREREQUISITES:
-This is lesson 2 of 3 in our 9th-12th grade Climate Heroes unit.
-This lesson should follow a basic introduction to climate change science, exploration of global and local impacts, and climate change solutions.
-Students should know how to access and navigate Padlet.
-Students should know how to work on Google Slides or a similar format.

DIFFERENTIATION:
-Students can complete the projects individually or in groups.
-The Padlet exploration can be done as a whole class or as independent work. For students who need support working independently, teachers can assign them three youth activists to explore.
-If students have trouble selecting one activist, they can pick the person who is closest in age to them.
-Students can choose to go outside of the Padlet for information, but they should use the C.R.A.A.P. test for determining the validity of their source. A video explaining the test is linked in the Padlet.

SYNOPSIS: In this lesson, students create portraits of youth climate heroes.

SCIENTIST NOTES: The content of this lesson plan focuses on artistic techniques and uses climate activists as the inspiration. The activists’ stories and the video featured are accurate. Resources and the bulk of science information come from previous lesson plans in this series. This is recommended for teaching.

POSITIVES:
-Students will experience using real-world problems as the sources of their art-making.
-Students will use their art to impact others through education, influence, and inspiration.
-This lesson provides numerous choice-based approaches, from the content of the artwork, to the media used, to the composition and presentation of the work.

ADDITIONAL PREREQUISITES:
-This is lesson 3 of 3 in our 9th-12th grade Climate Heroes unit.
-Basic knowledge of drawing/painting art materials is required (such as pencil, colored pencil, pen, watercolor, acrylic, etc.). This lesson should only be attempted after students have some basic media familiarity.
-Basic understanding of elements of art/principles of design, composition, and use of thumbnails should be established prior to this lesson.
-Students should have some prior experience drawing facial features such as eyes, nose, mouth, etc.

DIFFERENTIATION:
-The timing of the lesson can be altered according to teacher preference.
-The Investigate section offers various supports for students about different art techniques. Teachers can eliminate or add to this depending on student ability.
-The Investigate section includes an advanced study of portrait composition that is 52 minutes long. It is sectioned into chapters, so teachers can select which clips are most relevant for their class.
-If students are overwhelmed with choice, teachers can assign a specific type of art media.

Students and community residents of four remote Alaskan villages measure environmental data to identify their climate vulnerabilities.

Students investigate passive solar building design with a focus on heating. Insulation, window placement, thermal mass, surface colors, and site orientation are addressed in the background materials and design preparation. Students test their projects for thermal gains and losses during a simulated day and night then compare designs with other teams for suggestions for improvements.

This resource is a video abstract of a research paper created by Research Square on behalf of its authors. It provides a synopsis that's easy to understand, and can be used to introduce the topics it covers to students, researchers, and the general public. The video's transcript is also provided in full, with a portion provided below for preview:

"Investments in renewable energy are a powerful way to fight climate change Except when they come at the cost of human lives That’s the reality currently faced by the indigenous people of Oaxaca, Mexico In arguably the richest land for harvesting wind energy in all of Latin America government and investors foresee a promising solution to climate change and a source of new jobs But their approach is proving problematic to the way of life of the native Zapotecas and Ikoots who have had to sacrifice their land, their livelihood, and even their lives to backers of wind energy projects It’s what researcher Jacobo Ramirez calls a worrying case of social turbulence where Mexico’s unpredictable political and social systems has created a situation in which laws and regulations protecting environmental justice are not observed Until government and business can learn to include collective indigenous interests in their plans environmental injustice will continue to prevail.."

The rest of the transcript, along with a link to the research itself, is available on the resource itself.

This interactive world map shows the impact of a global temperature rise of 4 degrees Celsius on a variety of factors including agriculture, marine life, fires, weather patterns, and health. Hot Spots can be clicked on to get more specific information about the problems in different regions.

This poster, viewable online, highlights some of the impacts of a global-average temperature rise of 4 degrees C above the pre-industrial age climate.

This resource is a video abstract of a research paper created by Research Square on behalf of its authors. It provides a synopsis that's easy to understand, and can be used to introduce the topics it covers to students, researchers, and the general public. The video's transcript is also provided in full, with a portion provided below for preview:

"Coral reefs are unique hotspots of marine biodiversity, and millions of humans rely on them. However, ocean warming is causing reef-building corals to bleach, or expel their symbiotic algae, and die at unprecedented rates. Severe bleaching events are accelerating, so strategies to enhance coral stress resistance are needed. One possible strategy involves manipulation of corals’ rich and diverse microbiomes. A recent study investigated the effects of a new method, coral microbiome transplantation, on heat resistance in Pocillopora and Porites corals. The researchers used homogenized tissues from heat-tolerant donor corals to inoculate heat-sensitive recipient corals of the same species. They found that the recipients bleached less than seawater-inoculated control corals during short-term heat stress, indicating improved heat tolerance. And 16S rRNA gene metabarcoding revealed several donor-specific bacterial species, indicating that microbe transmission took place in both corals, Pocillopora and Porites..."

The rest of the transcript, along with a link to the research itself, is available on the resource itself.

This activity utilizes publicly available, proposed national legislation to provide a platform for student inquiry into the intersection of climate science, environmental economics and sustainable public policy.

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This resource is a video abstract of a research paper created by Research Square on behalf of its authors. It provides a synopsis that's easy to understand, and can be used to introduce the topics it covers to students, researchers, and the general public. The video's transcript is also provided in full, with a portion provided below for preview:

"The Paris Agreement, signed on the run-up to the hottest 3-year period on record, is humankind’s best bet at fighting climate change. The Agreement set a goal of holding the global average temperature to below 2°C above preindustrial levels. But while setting that mark was a promising start to halting global warming, it has appeared to invite more questions than it has answered: How much climate change is actually caused by human activity? How much of it is simply due to natural changes in our planet? To resolve that confusion, an international team of researchers set out to decouple natural from human-induced causes of global warming. Every factor contributing to climate change, natural or otherwise, leaves a distinct fingerprint across the planet’s entire historical temperature record. Increases in greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, for example, cause the planet to warm up. Whereas volcanic eruptions, which spew sunlight-blocking ash and other material into the air, tend to cool it down..."

The rest of the transcript, along with a link to the research itself, is available on the resource itself.

The changing climate is a phenomenon that will affect us all in the future - with a global increase of 2.1 degrees Fahrenheit over the last century1,decreasing sea ice in the arctic, rising sea levels, and an increase in the frequency of severe weather events, high school students are sure to feel the effects of climate change. While many students may have heard the terms “climate change” and “global warming” in the news, this unit aims to help students develop a scientific understanding as to what is causing these changes. Through a deeper understanding of the scientific basis of climate change, specifically the role of carbon dioxide in climate change, students will be better equipped to explain the changes that they are observing in real time. It is my hope that through this investigation students will become voices of change in their schools and communities, helping to educate others and get involved in climate action.

Children observe an ice cube in water and discuss the amount of ice above and below the water, discuss density of ice, and make predictions. Based on what they have observed about small ice chunks, the children apply what they have learned to make a prediction about large ice chunks or icebergs.