This article examines the sixth of seven essential principles of the climate sciences--"We Change Earth's Climate." Written for the science teacher, the article covers greenhouse gases, land-use changes, and other human-induced causes of global climate change. Each issue of the free online magazine Beyond Weather and the Water Cycle is structured around one of the seven principles. The content provides background information, lessons, and activities for K-5 classrooms.

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:

"One of the many reasons why a melting planet is a dangerous one is bacteria that break down carbon in soil. Freezing temperatures keep soil carbon locked away from these hungry microbes, but as temperatures rise, that carbon gradually becomes accessible, sending the bacteria into a feeding frenzy and thereby sending harmful carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. To better understand how that process could play out, researchers analyzed soil from the Alaskan tundra. Surprisingly, a 2.2°C increase in temperature was enough to substantially boost microbial activity, with further warming only compounding that effect. The results serve as a grim warning: left unchecked, global warming could have a more profound impact on the health of the planet than previously anticipated..."

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

Students will be required to answer a series of simple questions for this assignment based on material covered in lecture. This assignment also allows students the experience of searching a website for more specific information about hurricane statistics that are not covered in lecture. Hurricane Katrina will be discussed in lecture. Students will see where Katrina falls relative to other major hurricanes while answering the questions.

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In this problem-based learning module, students research and report on Hurricane Katrina, using an earth systems science analysis approach.

In this activity, students learn how people prepared for and then dealt during a hurricane by analyzing news headlines about Hurricane Florence (2018). Then they analyze data about the amount of damage that different categories of hurricanes cause, learning that even low category storms are able to cause damage.

This homework assignment is given in the first two weeks of class. Students receive one or two lectures that cover the topics of atmospheric layers, temperature and pressure profiles, concepts of atmospheric mass and pressure and measuring (i.e. dropsonde) instrumentation. At the beginning of each lecture I briefly show them the tropical update from the NOAA National Hurricane Center web site; if there is an active storm, I show where I go to get more info, such as the projected storm track and storm history (for example, from Intellicast Hurricane Tracking). Then, for this assignment, I reintroduce them to these hurricane information web sites and demonstrate how to find the historical data on tropical storms (such as from the Unisys Hurricane Data Archive), and how to copy and paste text data into word and/or excel, as a tab- or space-delimited file. I point out some problem areas with this data-grabbing method, such as headers that get lost from their associated data column or date information that may not format as dates.
I then hand out the assignment, which asks them to:

Find data on a current or recent (this year) tropical system, provide the name and year of the storm and the reference web site, and plot the wind speed and pressure variables against time. Students should label the axes and give a descriptive title to the chart.
Describe what they notice in the graphed data and if it seems believable (this allows students to decide if they have done the task correctly by using their understanding of the data).
Predict what will happen if the storm a) intensifies or b) weakens.
I then provide another data set (of any long-duration tropical storm that formed, weakened and later re-intensified) and ask them to go through the same process of plotting and interpretation.
I tell them that some future climate predictions are for more storms with lower central pressures and ask which of the two charts best represents that future scenario, and why.

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In this activity, students use maps and data to learn about where and how hurricanes form and possible correlations with climate change affecting their strength.

Hurricanes are a fact of life for millions of Americans each year, and billions more people around the world. What is a hurricane, and how can we prepare for them? Through a model and student-level data, students explore the factors influencing storm frequency and intensity. They also consider the language of storms, as well as steps to resilience. This guide is an extension of the TILclimate episode "TIL about hurricanes."

In this activity, students examine the effects of hurricanes on sea surface temperature using NASA data. They examine authentic sea surface temperature data to explore how hurricanes extract heat energy from the ocean surface.

This video discusses impacts that the Eastern US is experiencing due to climate change. It describes the seasonal shifts that may affect tourism in New England, extreme heat in the Southeast, how rising sea level affects coastal areas, changes in hurricane intensity, the spread of invasive species and disease, as well as other topics.

This video features Katharine Hayhoe presenting a lively discussion of impacts that the Midwestern US is experiencing due to climate change. It steps through evidence for how climate change is affecting agriculture, tourism, drought and flood, water cycles and freshwater availability, the spread of invasive species and disease, as well as other topics.

Students access the ice core data archived at Lamont-Doherty Geological Observatory. They select a core (Greenland, Antarctica, Quelcaya), pose a working hypothesis regarding the data, import the data in an Excel-readable format, and examine the data to determine correlations between variables and cause/effect as recorded in leads and lags. They generate a written and graphical analysis of the data and, in the next lab period, discuss the similarities and differences among their group outputs in terms of demonstrated correlations, assumptions required, effects of latitude, and any other item that arises.

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This video features research conducted at University of Colorado's Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research, which studies isotopes of hydrogen trapped in ice cores to understand climate changes in the past.

This article describes two hands-on lessons to teach elementary and middle school students about ice, glaciers, and climate change in the polar regions.

This diagram uses the metaphor of an iceberg to demonstrate the idea of visible vs hidden as it relates to Earth science phenomena. This teaching strategy helps students to see beyond the obvious and to develop their awareness of the underlying causes, relationships, and/or conditions that can contribute to phenomenological events. It also provides a framework for digging deeper into phenomena-driven lessons in Earth Science.

The Icebergs Project is a National Science Foundation sponsored partnership between University of Oregon’s research team lead by Dr. David Sutherland and 7th grade teachers for Eugene School District 4J’s Arts and Technology Academy Middle School, along with support from University of Oregon’s STEM CORE, a STEM education center. Over the course of several years teachers and scientists co-planned, revised, and carried out a research-connected cross-disciplinary project-based unit culminating in an “Icebergs Field Day” involving all members of the PI’s research team. Ultimately two separate week-long units were designed, with only one implemented each year.

This visualization is a collection of maps, by continent, that project the impact on coastlines of a 216-foot rise in sea level, which is assumed to be the result of melting all the land ice on Earth.

This audio slideshow examines the changes in the ecosystem that will occur to the Arctic due to increasing temperatures and disappearing sea ice.

This collection of photos from the NASA Climate website features images of global change, such as floods, wildfires, and retreating glaciers. Not all images show change caused directly by climate change and energy use, and descriptive captions indicate causes for change in most of the images.

The main content objectives covered in this unit are the phenomena of global warming, carbon cycle, ocean acidification, and its impact on plants, animals, and the marine ecosystem. The main purpose of this is to provide the reader with the basic knowledge base about these processes and understand the main players that are responsible for them. Fossil fuel pollution by human activities is contributing to the increase in the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere. Some of the CO2 is being absorbed by the oceans. This process increases the number of free hydrogen ions in the oceans, making the ocean water more acidic. This phenomenon is called ocean acidification. When oceans become acidic, they can negatively affect the plants, living organisms such as shell-forming organisms, and other marine life. The results of this process are devastating and this unit hopes to bring students’ attention to these dangers.