Climate Change Curriculum

A climate change curriculum? Recently a question was posed if I had any suggestions on how to set-up a classroom project on "climate change". This got me to thinking about how a climate change curriculum might be set up. I did some research and didn't find much information. I decided to piece together a combination of ideas from online research with my own knowledge of climate change and come up with an outline that could be used to set up a classroom project on this all-important issue.

Climate change has unfortunately become politicized for various reasons. However, there is science behind the recent rapid warming over the last few decades in particular. There are many natural causes that have dominated past changes and for the more recent climate changes other factors are more dominant, such as the human influence. I will now share my advice on how you’d go about setting up a class project on climate change.

Divide class into teams of 3 or 4.

Assign the topics below by group:

• What is climate and how is it changing? (include carbon dioxide trend)

• What are some causes? (natural vs. man-made)

• What are some effects/consequences? (i.e., on living things, sea levels, glacial melt, etc.)

• What is my contribution? (calculate carbon footprint)

• What are some solutions you can do? (i.e., CF bulbs, re-usable bags for grocery shopping, turn thermostat down in winter, etc.)

• What changes can policy makers do? (i.e., make solar, geothermal more affordable/reliable, biofuels, carbon tax, etc.)

• What lies ahead? (i.e., expectations of meeting challenges, prospects for solutions, global solutions, etc.)

Group is responsible to do a mini research project on their assigned ‘topic’ and a class presentation.

Grade based on a written report and class presentation. Okay - that's my suggested outline for a project on climate change. This could be expanded further with more details to create a couple chapters of a science class in middle school or even an introductory course in college.

As this issue becomes "front and center" in the public's psyche I wouldn't be surprised to see more projects, classes, courses and seminars sprouting up across the country and the world in the coming years.