This book explores six strategies for eliminating the gap between consumption and renewable production.

TED Studies, created in collaboration with Wiley, are curated video collections — supplemented by rich educational materials — for students, educators and self-guided learners. In Reworking the Western Diet, speakers examine how that diet — processed, high in refined sugars, and heavy in corn, soy, meat and dairy — is making us and the environment sick. These TED Talks blaze the trail to sustainable farming and a more sensible diet. 

One of the biggest challenges scientists face when studying the ocean is observing the interplay between physical processes and biology in fine detail. Join Jules Jaffe, a research oceanographer in Scripps' Marine Physical Laboratory, as he describes his latest scheme to uncover these processes with swarms of inexpensive, miniaturized robotic floats that travel with currents, sense the environment and report their findings back to us. (58 minutes)

This regular column, called Take Action, in the magazine Beyond Weather and the Water Cycle suggests actions K-5 teachers can take to incorporate the guiding principle for informed climate decisions in the classroom. The principle, which appears in the document Climate Literacy, states that humans can take actions to reduce climate change and its impacts.

This is an activity that uses the spreadsheet program Excel to explore the origins of subsidence in New Orleans. There are two versions. The first is a traditional Spreadsheets Across the Curriculum (SSAC) module that couples a PowerPoint presentation with an embedded Excel spreadsheet where students construct a spreadsheet, and then submit the Excel file for grading. The second is a macro-enabled Excel spreadsheet that provides automatic feedback to answers and calculates the score. Upon completion the students are given a code that encrypts their spreadsheet score and then take a follow-up quiz that probes their understanding.

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Students use spreadsheets to analyze the reasons why New Orleans has subsided in the past 250 years.

We systematically introduce chaos/complex systems theory concepts in at least four courses we teach, although to different depths depending on the goals of the course. We begin by exploring the behavior and properties of chaotic systems (about two 50 minute classes) and then use complexity theory models to talk about the different kinds of evolution (2-3 more 50 minute classes).

The courses include a general education class dealing with the Earth and its environments (GGEOL 102: Environment: Earth), the historical geology class for majors (GEOL 230, Evolution of the Earth), another general education course dedicated to evolutionary systems of all kinds (GEOL 200, Evolutionary Systems), and, a new course in the environmental science minor (ENVT 200 - Environmental Systems Theory) In all of the courses we demonstrate concepts with algorithms using computer based simulations where possible. In the evolutionary systems and environmental systems classes there are frequent breakouts to do computer lab experiments.Â

Chaos/complex systems concepts in the historical geology class are developed in one fell swoop near the beginning of the semester, while in the others courses concepts are introduced in steps throughout the semester, exactly how and in what depth depends on the subject matter and course level.

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Published by the UC Santa Cruz Center for Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems, the 600-page manual covers practical aspects of organic farming and gardening, applied soil science, and social and environmental issues in agriculture. Units contain lecture outlines for instructors and detailed lecture outlines for students, field and laboratory demonstrations, assessment questions, and annotated resource lists. Although much of the material has been developed for field or garden demonstrations and skill building, most of the units can also be tailored to a classroom setting.The training manual is designed for a wide audience of those involved in teaching farming and gardening, including colleges and universities with programs in sustainable agriculture, student farms or gardens, and on-farm education programs; urban agriculture, community garden, and farm training programs; farms with internships or apprenticeships; agriculture extension stations; school gardening programs; organizations such as the Peace Corps, US AID, and other groups that provide international training in food growing and ecological growing methods; and master gardener programs.

Climate Change in Narrative Film

Short Description:
Explores the history and impact of the “Cli-Fi Film,” or Climate Fiction Film, a sub-genre of narrative cinema that depicts, on some level, the effects of climate change on the Earth and its inhabitants.

Long Description:
Telling Stories to Save the World: Climate Change in Narrative Film explores – through text, images, and video – the history and impact of the “Cli-Fi Film,” or Climate Fiction Film, a subgenre of narrative cinema that depicts, on some level, the effects of climate change on the Earth and its inhabitants. This openly-licensed resource covers the following topics: overview of climate change; rationale for the focus on narrative, or feature, film; definition and context of the “Cli-Fi Film”; history and impact of major narrative films focused on climate change, from Soylent Green (1973) to Don’t Look Up (2021). The resource concludes with a consideration of the future direction of Cli-Fi Films. Along the way, learners read about the author and some effects of climate change on her own life, inspiring her to create this resource and hopefully inciting those who use it to action.

Word Count: 23112

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Short Description:
The curriculum shared here utilizes Terra Nostra, a multimedia symphony about climate change. Variations of the curriculum were developed by Kim Davenport for use in several 100-, 200- and 300-level non-major music courses at the University of Washington, Tacoma.

Long Description:
The curriculum shared here utilizes Terra Nostra, a multimedia symphony about climate change. Variations of the curriculum were developed by Kim Davenport for use in several 100-, 200- and 300-level non-major music courses at the University of Washington, Tacoma. More than 50% of UWT undergraduate students are the first in their family to attend college, and nearly 60% are students of color.

Depending on the exact level and subject-matter of each course, Terra Nostra was utilized in support of a variety of learning objectives: Building students’ listening skills, through the combination of music and video, and through the analysis of music without words Drawing interdisciplinary connections between music and other disciplines Providing an example of music created to raise awareness about a timely social issue

Although the assignments shared here were designed for music courses, they could easily be adapted for inclusion in courses in other disciplines, and this is indeed one of the motivations for sharing this curriculum through a Creative Commons license.

Word Count: 2876

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This investigation is a laboratory activity in which the alkalinity of 2 types of substrates (carbonate vs. non-carbonate) are compared on the basis of titration. Students will reflect on the relationship of alkalinity and toxic heavy metals. Teaching ideas from: Project Wet, Water Education for Teachers as found in: "Healthy Water Healthy People, Field Monitoring Guide "(2003)

In this video, members of the Menominee nation discuss their experiences with climate change.

This video from NASA explains the process by which gamma-ray flashes associated with storms produce matter/antimatter particle pairs.

To Drill or Not to Drill is a multidisciplinary problem based learning exercise, which intends to increase students' knowledge of a variety of topics through a real world environmental topic. In addition, drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) impacts students either directly (depending on the age level) or indirectly (through their parents) as gas prices soar to record high levels.

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This is the final project/presentation for undergraduate students in a relatively small introductory geoscience class where most (but not all) students are taking the class to satisfy their lab science requirement. Students are asked to create their own geological teaching demonstration and/or activity geared to high school or college geoscience classes which allows students to deepen their knowledge in a particular area of their interest. The style of the assignment is similar to the labs in the course where the students participation is "requested" in a (fictional) letter of request and they must respond appropriately with a letter of reply as well as completion of the specific assignment (which, in this case, includes the activity/demonstration, Teacher's Notes, Supply List, Geological Background, and Peer Evaluations). In addition to creating this demonstration/activity and write-up, the students much also trial and present their demonstration/activity to the rest of the class, the instructor, and a visiting K-12 environmental scientist in a conference-style session (name-tags and program provided) for evaluation.

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Students reenact a public hearing to determine how to manage a deer herd that is overpopulated.

Students are divided into teams, each charged with writing a plan for the expansion of a fictional town in the North Cascades foothills. The town council (the instructor) has decided upon several expansion projects, such as an airport and housing subdivisions, and the student teams receive information about the bedrock geology, hydrology, soils, and slope stability of the area. Students present their plans in a open forum to the other students, and there is a vote of the students on the most reasonable science-based plan.

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Go behind the scenes at the Hastings Reserve to examine the social structure of acorn woodpeckers and western bluebirds and take a look at the restoration of California's native grasslands. The Hastings Reserve, the University of California Natural Reserve System's (NRS) Biological Field Station in the Santa Lucia mountain range in Monterey, was set aside in 1937 to be managed with minimal disturbance providing researchers an important ecosystem for study. (29 minuntes)

The University of California's White Mountain Research Station provides science unprecedented access to unique environments, environments where life exists at the edge of extremes. This award- winning documentary weaves a story of how this unique access is yielding an understanding of change, from physiology to climate, from the oldest known living organism, to a short-lived beetle, and what this understanding means for all. (59 minutes)

Located in Southern California's San Jacinto Mountains, the Natural Reserve System's (NRS) James Reserve is at the forefront of an effort to use high technology to gain insight into the natural world. Embedded cameras monitor the nesting cycles of birds, sensor networks track weather data on habitat microclimates, and computers map out the potential damage from wildfires. (29 minutes)