This course is designed to give you the scientific understanding you need to answer questions like:

How much energy can we really get from wind?
How does a solar photovoltaic work?
What is an OTEC (Ocean Thermal Energy Converter) and how does it work?
What is the physics behind global warming?
What makes engines efficient?
How does a nuclear reactor work, and what are the realistic hazards?

The course is designed for MIT sophomores, juniors, and seniors who want to understand the fundamental laws and physical processes that govern the sources, extraction, transmission, storage, degradation, and end uses of energy.

Students explore the life of pikas, tiny mammals that live in alpine areas, and how they are being impacted by climate change. After a brief introduction which includes a reading, a short video, and a story that includes a mathematical model, students engage in a kinesthetic simulation to gain first-hand experience of life as a pika and how the animals can be impacted by shrinking habitat. Students then create line graphs with data from the simulation and analyze them.

In this activity, students use measurement and area skills to learn about remote detection of wildfires from space. After detecting mock wildfires with mobile devices, students then study satellite-data visualizations to determine the start dates of actual California wildfires.

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:

"In 2009, 28 world-renowned scientists gathered on a mission: to figure out how to save the planet—or, at least, how far we can push the planet before threatening our survival. The result was a list of nine critical environmental limits below which the Earth’s future would remain safe—by keeping atmospheric carbon low, for example. Exceeding those limits would risk irreversible global damage. But despite providing good science-based measures for monitoring the Earth’s health, these so-called Planetary Boundaries fail to address one very important question: What can you— as a citizen, CEO, city council, or national committee—do to help? That’s where a new approach called Planetary Accounting comes in. The problem with the Planetary Boundaries is that they can’t be directly translated to figures that make sense at smaller scales..."

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

A complete guide to teaching a one-semester course on planetary health at the high school or middle school level. Includes all lectures, activities, and additional resources for educators.

SYNOPSIS: In this lesson, students learn about science experiments, design and execute an experiment to learn about what plants need to survive, and communicate their findings to others.

SCIENTIST NOTES: The lesson allows students to use scientific method to inquire about how different plants can survive across fresh water, salt water, and brackish water. It allows students to investigate the changes and predict the water conditions required for plants to survive. All images, videos, and accompanying materials featured in the lesson have been reviewed. This lesson has passed our science review process.

POSITIVES:
-Students engage in many of the Next Generation Science Standards Science and Engineering Practices.
-Students have the opportunity to develop and execute an experiment.
-Students use both sketching and writing as observational tools.

ADDITIONAL PREREQUISITES:
-This is lesson 3 of 4 in our K-2nd grade Water and Plant Survival unit.
-You will need the following materials for activity in the Inquire section:
-1-liter pitcher of plain water
-1-liter pitcher of water with about 2 teaspoons of salt dissolved
-1-liter pitcher of water with about 6 teaspoons of salt dissolved
-A small cup for each student
-You will need the following materials for the pre-filled experiment in the Investigate section:
-3-6 plants (choose one type of plant, 1-2 plants will receive freshwater, 1-2 plants will receive brackish water, and 1-2 plants will receive saltwater)
-A measuring cup
-A sunny location
-The Inspire section of this lesson builds on Lesson 2 of the Water and Plant Survival unit. The mural will be completed in Lesson 4. If you are choosing to only complete this lesson, you may wish to show students this video from Lesson 2 and discuss how they can create a class mural without creating it on a large scale.

DIFFERENTIATION:
-You can choose the scientist video in the Investigate section that is the best fit for your students. Options include Sesame Street: Bouncing Balls or A Study in Stream Ecology. The Teacher Slideshow includes slides with questions specific to each video.
-The Investigate section offers several options for experimentation. Each option will provide students with the understanding needed to complete subsequent lessons in the unit. The three options include:
-Students may create their own experiment, with teacher support.
-Students may participate in an experiment where the procedure is provided.
-Students can look at data collected from an experiment and discuss the findings.

This video describes the foundation Plant for the Planet, a foundation created by a 9-year-old German boy, Felix. This foundation has planted more than 500,000 trees in Germany, which he says help sequester carbon and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The student rallies, first his community and then other children, to plant millions of trees to offset our energy-use emissions.

SYNOPSIS: This lesson introduces students to the benefits of an aquaponics system, especially in areas where clean soil and water are scarce.

SCIENTIST NOTES: This lesson demonstrates the importance of sustainable agriculture and how gardening without soil can provide positive results. This is a hands-on activity for students to engage in gardening. Aquaculture and hydroponics are discussed in good detail. All the materials featured in the lesson have been verified, and this lesson is recommended for teaching.

POSITIVES:
-This lesson creates a collaborative learning environment as students engage with a variety of science and engineering practices.
-Connections are made between the school garden in NJ and other locations where gardening may be difficult for a variety of environmental reasons.
-Project-based learning and hands-on activities promote engagement and participation from all learners.
-This lesson features vocabulary development which broadens student understanding of the concept of aquaponics.

ADDITIONAL PREREQUISITES:
-The lesson takes ~60 minutes, but students will continue 10-15 minutes one day a week for recording observations in their digital or paper journals.
-Students will need a basic understanding of what seeds and plants need to grow and produce food.
-Additionally, students would benefit from an opportunity to plant seeds in soil and observe the life cycle from seed germination to food production prior to this lesson.

DIFFERENTIATION:
-If teaching remotely, students can have access to teacher slides and digital resources, including journals to participate from home.
-This lesson provides opportunities for students to learn about the topic using different modalities including visual, auditory, kinesthetic, and tactile.
-Groups of students with mixed abilities can collaborate on their journal definitions, predictions, and observations.
-Teachers can structure the learning around explaining or solving a social or community-based issue.
-An extension activity can be a salad party. After lettuce grows, students will have the opportunity to pick, wash, and taste their own lettuce.

In this lesson, students view images of plastic pollution around the world, watch a video on plastic pollution, and analyze artwork about plastic pollution.

Step 1 - Inquire: Students complete a KWL on plastic pollution and view six images of plastic pollution around the world.

Step 2 - Investigate: Students watch a video on plastic pollution and discuss.

Step 3 - Inspire: Students analyze artwork with a partner and then choose one artwork to analyze using the art critique star.

SYNOPSIS: In this lesson, students view images of plastic pollution around the world, watch a video on plastic pollution, and analyze artwork about plastic pollution.

SCIENTIST NOTES: The lesson characterizes plastic pollution around the world. It deploys the power of arts to change people's beliefs towards plastic consumption and improve their understanding on the impact of plastic pollution on the environment. The lesson is well-sourced and is suitable and recommended for teaching.

POSITIVES:
-Students are exposed to the impacts of global plastic pollution.
-Students are exposed to a variety of ways activists can use art to create awareness and apply cultural and political pressure to create change.
-Students will understand that big companies are the ones creating major plastic pollution.

ADDITIONAL PREREQUISITES:
-This is lesson 3 of 6 in our 3rd-5th grade Art for the Earth unit.
-Students should have a basic understanding of plastic pollution.
-Partners or small groups will need a set of artwork critiquing question cards between them. To save time, cards can be cut out before the lesson or shared with students digitally.

DIFFERENTIATION:
-Students can be paired or grouped based on ability. Students who do not regularly shine in class may have the most insightful analysis of the artworks. Make sure to provide concrete, specific feedback on how their analysis is insightful.
-Make sure to guide students to "share the air" when discussing the artwork in partners or groups. Step in to make sure all students have their voices heard so that certain students are not always talking or always listening.

In this classroom activity, students measure the energy use of various appliances and electronics and calculate how much carbon dioxide (CO2) is released to produce that energy.

This is an interactive video in which students navigate around a virtual island while learning about the characteristics of land formations and bodies of water.

In this 45-60 minute high-stakes board game, everyone wins or everyone loses. As they play, groups of three to four children ages 8 to 13 build an understanding of how human actions impact global change. As teams, children play a game in which chance and choice determine the fate of a lone polar bear on an ice floe.

Using a combination of clickable 360 degree landscapes, 2D and 3D videos, animations, interviews with scientists, and mini-games, the Polar Lab takes players onto the glacier ice and into the lab in search of evidence to answer big questions about Earth's climateâpast, present, and future. They search for plant and animal fossils that can reveal what this Arctic and Antarctic environment was like 50 million years ago. Students examine two kinds of clues that act as time capsules for exploring the past: mud cores and ice cores. Finally, students examine the rapid retreat of the massive glaciers and sea ice to better understand how changing ice conditions affect animals.

In this video from the Polaris Project Website, American and Siberian university students describe their research on permafrost.

To prepare for this exercise, students will read about the Earth's energy balance, the electromagnetic spectrum (including visible solar and invisible infrared energy), the effect of the earth's atmosphere, and the earth's resulting general oceanic and atmospheric circulation. For this I like Chapters 3, 4, & 5 in "The Earth System" (2nd Ed.) by Kump, Kasting, & Crane. The students' first step is to estimate zonal averages of Incoming Solar (Shortwave), Absorbed Shortwave, and Outgoing Longwave Radiation from 11x17in color maps of Earth Radiation Budget Experiment (ERBE) data. Then I remix the groups and they create zonal averages of these data at particular longitudes (like Fig. 2-14 in Ruddiman, "Earth's Climate: Past & Future").

(Note: this resource was added to OER Commons as part of a batch upload of over 2,200 records. If you notice an issue with the quality of the metadata, please let us know by using the 'report' button and we will flag it for consideration.)

Students learn how a bill becomes law in the U.S. Congress and research legislation related to global warming.

SYNOPSIS: In this lesson, students use New Jersey precipitation data to create graphs and discuss climate change.

SCIENTIST NOTES: This lesson has students working on their data analysis skills through the use of graphs which help students to interpret New Jersey’s precipitation data and how it relates to climate change. A class discussion encourages students to think critically about the raw data. Students then work independently to graph the precipitation over time, finding a line of best fit and the equation for the line. This is followed by a discussion of the relationship between time and precipitation. Data forecasting is touched upon when students are asked to think about what data they would need next and what is predictable about the data. Students then choose one of two choices that allow them to compare and contrast visually represented data. This is a well-rounded lesson that relays the information of climate change through graphing and data analysis and is recommended for teaching.

POSITIVES:
-This lesson can be used independently to practice application of math and reasoning skills or as ang point for longer research into data displays.
-Students can use graph paper or any digital platform schools and teachers are already familiar with.
-Students are given voice and choice in this lesson.
-Students learn to apply math skills to current situations to explore and explain relationships in nature.
-Students defend their chosen quantities and levels of accuracy in displaying data.

ADDITIONAL PREREQUISITES:
-Students should have some basic understanding of graphing, plotting points, and the relationship between x & y-axes.
-Students should have a basic idea of an equation of a line, line of best fit, and slope.
-Students should have a basic understanding of other types and purposes of graphs and charts.

DIFFERENTIATION:
-Teachers can adjust the degree of difficulty based on the math level of each class.
-If using a digital graphing platform, teachers and students can manipulate data to explore related questions.
-Teachers can explore deeper the purpose of different kinds of graphs in highlighting different parts of the same data set.
-Teachers can bring in a variety of graphs from scientific journals or magazines, such as National Geographic, as instructional tools.
-Teachers can extend this project to have students or classes graph the relationship between precipitation and time for all 50 states. Students can then display their graphs and conclusions. Teachers can moderate discussions comparing and contrasting various states and regions or make a conclusion as a whole.
-Using the same website resources, students can explore the average maximum and minimum temperature table. They can explore the relationship between temperature and precipitation using various graphs. Teachers can then use this to discuss causation and/or correlation.
-Teachers can use the lesson to introduce causation and correlation, asking students if there is a correlation between precipitation and climate change.

This short video explains how climate change can lead to more extreme precipitation events and more frequent flooding. Information from the CDC has succinct information about the health downsides of extreme precipitation events, including mental health impacts.

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:

"Climate change stands to have a tremendous impact on the world’s freshwater ecosystems. To understand how, researchers analyzed 15,289 functional genes related to nutrient cycling and stress processes gathered from biofilm microbes across mountainside streams in Norway, Spain, and China. With increasing elevation, microbial functional diversity tended to decline, and the composition of functional gene assemblages tended to differ more with greater elevational distances. These variations were more drastic as the environmental differences between the lowlands and the peaks increased. The best predictors of these variations appear to be climatic factors, such as temperature during the growing season. and winter precipitation. Including predictors at the local or landscape level could further refine the picture painted by these findings and help Eurasian countries anticipate significant alterations to their stream ecosystems amid a changing climate..."

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