In this activity, students will practice the steps involved in a scientific investigation as they learn why ice formations on land (and not those on water) will cause a rise in sea level upon melting. This is a discovery lesson on ice and water density and displacement of water.

In this activity, students estimate the drop in sea level during glacial maxima, when ice and snow in high latitudes and altitudes resulted in lower sea levels. Students estimate the surface area of the world's oceans, use ice volume data to approximate how much sea levels dropped, and determine the sea-level rise that would occur if the remaining ice melted.

What distribution of adjustment costs for climate change mitigation is fair, and should be acceptable to the most (important) countries? Are there ways of framing the issue that could be more effective in galvanizing effective action?

In Global Climate Summit, students are all assigned to be the leaders of specific countries in the world, and they have all been invited to an international environmental summit. Students will research factors in their countries and, using this information, will decide how climate change could affect their country and how their policies could help reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Students then run a global climate summit in class to defend their perspectives and ultimately decide who has the responsibility to reduce climate emissions and how it can be accomplished.

Have you seen a Clean Coal baseball cap? In the challenge to meet soaring energy demand with limited resources, volatile issues like those related to the environment, national security and public health are often addressed outside of normal market transactions and are called externalities, or nonmarket factors. Stakeholders can act in resourceful ways to create a nonmarket environment that best serves their interest. A firm may challenge a law that makes it expensive or difficult to do business or compete with others, for example. An individual may organize a boycott of products or services that violate the individual's interests or principles--hey, don't buy from them! Nonmarket strategy in the energy sector is the subject of this engaging course.

Global Forest Watch is an interactive, online forest monitoring and alert system that provides users globally with the information they need to better manage and conserve forest landscapes.

For the first time in history, the global demand for freshwater is overtaking its supply in many parts of the world. The U.N. predicts that by 2025, more than half of the countries in the world will be experiencing water stress or outright shortages. Lack of water can cause disease, food shortages, starvation, migrations, political conflict, and even lead to war. Models of cooperation, both historic and contemporary, show the way forward. The first half of the course details the multiple facets of the water crisis. Topics include water systems, water transfers, dams, pollution, climate change, scarcity, water conflict/cooperation, food security, and agriculture. The second half of the course describes innovative solutions: Adaptive technologies and adaptation through policy, planning, management, economic tools, and finally, human behaviors required to preserve this precious and imperiled resource. Several field trips to water/wastewater/biosolids reuse and water-energy sites will help us to better comprehend both local and international challenges and solutions.

For the first time in history, the global demand for freshwater is overtaking its supply in many parts of the world. The U.N. predicts that by 2025, more than half of the countries in the world will be experiencing water stress or outright shortages. Lack of water can cause disease, food shortages, starvation, migrations, political conflict, and even lead to war. Models of cooperation, both historic and contemporary, show the way forward. The first half of the course details the multiple facets of the water crisis. Topics include water systems, water transfers, dams, pollution, climate change, scarcity, water conflict/cooperation, food security, and agriculture. The second half of the course describes innovative solutions: Adaptive technologies and adaptation through policy, planning, management, economic tools, and finally, human behaviors required to preserve this precious and imperiled resource. Several field trips to water/wastewater/biosolids reuse and water-energy sites will help us to better comprehend both local and international challenges and solutions.

With this simulation from the NASA Climate website, learners explore different examples of how ice is melting due to climate change in four places where large quantities of ice are found. The photo comparisons, graphs, animations, and especially the time lapse video clips of glaciers receding are astonishing and dramatic.

This is lesson five of a 9-lesson module. Activity explores the effects of climate change on different parts of the Earth system and on human well-being: polar regions, coral reefs, disease vectors, extreme weather, and biodiversity.

How does global warming affect humans? The Climate Change Webcast explores the causes and effects of climate change as students work together to create an international climate change proposal to present at the United Nations Climate Summit.

Road to Doha explores critical environmental issues through addressing the driving question “How do we, as youth, impact climate change in our communities?”

The Tech Camps curriculum explores the use of technology and sustainable design to address environmental challenges in local and global communities. How do we, as youth, use technology to create solutions for climate change issues affecting our local and global communities?

Students use an online mapping tool to investigate changes in global snow cover, develop a problem statement about global snow cover, and then use the tools to investigate a problem or question of their own design.

Students analyze the global temperature record from 1867 to the present. Long-term trends and shorter-term fluctuations are both evaluated.

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This video segment demonstrates carbon dioxide's role in the greenhouse effect and explains how increasing concentrations of C02 in the atmosphere may be contributing to global warming. Video includes an unusual demonstration of C02's heat-absorbing properties, using infrared film, a researcher's face, and a stream of C02 between them.

Detailed, annotated example of Socratic questioning for topics of climate change, global warming, and greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.

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In this assignment, you will conduct an experiment to simulate the greenhouse effect and global warming. You will be recording and graphing your results.

Brian Fagan is an emeritus professor of anthropology at University of California, Santa Barbara who has written several books about past climate change and its effect on the course of European history. His latest book, "The Great Warming," focuses on the Medieval Warm Period (circa 10th to 14th centuries) during which the North Atlantic region experienced an unusually warm climate, and discusses historical events and trends that can be correlated with this climatic change. This assignment uses this book, along with student-retrieved newspaper articles, as the basis for a research paper that addresses the issue of global warming, its effect on past civilizations and its anticipated effect on the future of the citizens of New York City.

Based primarily on "The Great Warming", students address the following questions in a 5 page paper:

What methods and data sources do scientists use to determine climates of the past? How reliable are these various approaches?
How was European climate different during the Medieval Warm Period, and how did this climate affect the lives of people in Europe?
How was climate different during the Medieval Warm Period for one other region of personal interest, and how did this climate affect the lives of people who lived in that region?

Using information from "The Great Warming" and three to six articles from past issues of a major newspaper, such as the New York Times, students determine probable effects of global warming to the future populations of either their home city, or of the region for which they documented past climate change.

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A sequence of five short animated videos that explain the properties of carbon in relationship to global warming, narrated by Robert Krulwich from NPR.