Featured Resources

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The Essential Principles of Climate Literacy

Climate and energy are complex topics. There are many ways to approach climate and energy depending on the grade level, course topics and instructional method.

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Toolbox for Teaching Climate & Energy

https://nca2018.globalchange.gov/chapter/front-matter-about/The Toolbox for Teaching Climate & Energy has been created to organize and highlight resources from numerous educational and science partners and programs all working toward the supporting teachers and education systems.

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Teaching Essential Principle 6: Human activities are impacting the climate system.

These key ideas relate to the causes and effects of human-induced climate change. The potential for human activities to increase the temperature of the Earth through greenhouse gas emissions has been described and calculated for over a century.

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Teaching Climate Literacy

  • Climate and energy are complex topics. There are many ways to approach climate and energy depending on the grade level, course topics and instructional method.

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Professional Development

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Mar
4

The UC Berkeley Understanding Global Change Project and CLEAN

Climate Literacy and Energy Awareness Network (CLEAN) Webinar Series will take your tea

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National Climate Assessment Teaching Resources

  • Explore a series of guides for educators that focus on the regional chapters of the Assessment Report, helping to unpack the key messages of each region and point to related, high-quality online resources.

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Case Studies

Unique and diverse youth programming models and student-driven initiatives that are advancing place-based climate solutions.

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Events

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Blog

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Educational Resources

Seasonal Change on Land and Water

In this worksheet-based activity, students review global visualizations of incoming sunlight and surface temperature and discuss seasonal change.

Thermal Expansion of Water

This is a short experiment to demonstrate the concept of thermal expansion of water when heated, as an analogy to thermal expansion of oceans due to global warming.

Investigating Combustion and the Carbon Cycle

In this activity, students explore the role of combustion in the carbon cycle. They learn that carbon flows among reservoirs on Earth through processes such as respiration, photosynthesis, combustion, and decomposition, and that combustion of fossil fuels is causing an imbalance.

The Incredible Carbon Journey

In this activity, students explore the way that human activities have changed the way that carbon is distributed in Earth's atmosphere, lithosphere, biosphere and hydrosphere.

Global And Great Lakes Climate Change

In this activity students work with data to analyze local and global temperature anomaly data to look for warming trends. The activity focuses on the Great Lakes area.

My Angle on Cooling: Effects of Distance and Inclination

In this hands-on lesson, students measure the effect of distance and inclination on the amount of heat felt by an object and apply this experiment to building an understanding of seasonality.

Carbon Footprint Calculator | Climate Change | US EPA

This carbon footprint calculator is set up for easy-to-use inputs for three sectors: home energy use, local transportation, and home waste generation.

A Tour of the Cryosphere 2009

This video shows some of the most dramatic fluctuations to our cryosphere in recent years, using visuals created with a variety of satellite-based data.

What's Happening to our Climate: The Problem

Two short, narrated animations about carbon dioxide and Earth's temperature are presented on this webpage.

How the World Can Tackle Climate Change

This short video reviews how nations and individuals can work together to reduce the emission of CO2. It discusses strategies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions (energy conservation, renewable energies, change in energy use) and the role that government can play in this process.

Earth: An animated map of global wind and weather

This animation depicts real-time wind speed and direction at selected heights above Earth's surface, ocean surface currents, and ocean surface temperatures and anomalies.

Water: A Zero Sum Game

This video takes viewers high into the Rocky Mountain snowpack, where researchers dig snow pits to explore the source of Colorado's water supply. Highlights the importance of snowpack on the supply of fresh water available in western and southwestern states.

Carbon Footprint Calculator | Climate Change | US EPA

This carbon footprint calculator is set up for easy-to-use inputs for three sectors: home energy use, local transportation, and home waste generation.

Thermal Expansion of Water

This is a short experiment to demonstrate the concept of thermal expansion of water when heated, as an analogy to thermal expansion of oceans due to global warming.

Earth: An animated map of global wind and weather

This animation depicts real-time wind speed and direction at selected heights above Earth's surface, ocean surface currents, and ocean surface temperatures and anomalies.

Surging Seas Risk Finder

This is a multi-step, interactive tool for users to identify potential risks (to people, buildings, infrastructure, contamination, land) for selected coastal areas in the US, using scenarios of water level rising (as a result of tides, sea level rise, and storm surge) from 0-10 feet.

Climate Resilience Toolkit

This is a rich compilation of resources and tools to help decision-makers across the US identify their local climate threats and vulnerabilities and reduce their risks from impacts of climate​ variability and change.

Windy

This is a full color, worldwide, animated weather map using GIS interface showing current and projected wind and other weather conditions for any location in the world. Data can be viewed at different spatial scales.

Thermal Expansion of Water

This is a short experiment to demonstrate the concept of thermal expansion of water when heated, as an analogy to thermal expansion of oceans due to global warming.

Biofuels/Biomass Cellulose Lab

In this lab activity, students investigate how to prepare a biofuel source for conversion to a combustible product. The activity models how raw materials are refined to process liquid fuels.

Comparison of the Effects of Increased CO2 in the Air to Seawater and Distilled Water

This well-designed experiment compares CO2 impacts on salt water and fresh water. In a short demonstration, students examine how distilled water (i.e., pure water without any dissolved ions or compounds) and seawater are affected differently by increasing carbon dioxide in the air.

How does Temperature Affect the Solubility of CO2 in Water?

This short investigation from Carbo Europe explores how temperature affects the solubility of carbon dioxide in water.

Uptake of Carbon Dioxide from Water by Plants

Two simple experiments/demonstrations show the role of plants in mitigating the acidification caused when CO2 is dissolved in water.

Making a Solar Oven

This activity from the Department of Energy provides background information about solar ovens and instructions on building a simple model solar cooker.