YEP! 2012 Climate Science Curriculum

Slides for introduction to climate change presentation. (PowerPoint 2007 (.pptx) 118.7MB Jul6 12)

• Key discussion questions:
  
• Do you think climate change will impact you during your lifetime and, if so, how?
• What are fossil fuels?

• Key climate concepts
• Underlying physics and chemistry of human-induced climate change is not uncertain
  
• Fossil fuels include oil, coal, and natural gas (methane).
• The largest source of uncertainty in our projections of the future climate is that we do not know what choices human society will make.
  
• Overview of basic climate facts:
• CO₂ emissions over time
• CO₂ concentration over time
• Temperature change over time
• How shifts in the average and variance of a given climate condition (e.g., temperature) can have a large influence on the intensity and frequency of extreme events
  
• Some climate changes we've already observed
• We can take action to avoid the worst impacts
• E.g., reducing energy use, switching to renewable energy sources such as solar and wind.
  

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Slides for introduction to systems thinking presentation. (PowerPoint 2007 (.pptx) 2.4MB Jun13 12)

• Key systems concepts:
• Understand stocks, flows, feedbacks
• Stocks: show jug of water
• Flows: show flow into and out of stock
• Feedback: show that a level of water that is the goal of the system; feedback represents information about that goal
• Reinforcing/positive feedback loops
• Balancing/negative feedback loops
  
• Systems thinking exercises
  
• Paper-folding exercise and mental models about exponential growth
• Paper-folding exercise
  
• CO2 stock-and-flow system with people?
• Delays in systems, and their relationship to stocks
  
• Props needed for systems thinking exercises:
• Paper-fold exercise: napkins or paper towels (enough for everyone)
• Stock and flow demo:
• Iced tea jug and two glasses of water
• Water
• Delays: lighter, small glass of water.
  

Introduction to the carbon cycle

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Slides for Introduction to Carbon Cycle (PowerPoint 2007 (.pptx) 34.6MB Jun14 12)

• Why is carbon important to life and energy?
• Photosynthesis: uses solar energy to remove CO2 from the atmosphere and 'fix' it into organic carbon or biomass, while releasing O2
  
• Respiration: releases chemical energy stored in carbon bonds, consumes O2, and converts organic C to CO2
• Burning fossil fuels is analogous to respiration - converts organic C to CO2, consumes O2, and releases energy
• Fossil fuels:
• ancient plant and phytoplankton biomass, accumulated and converted to coal (wood), oil (phytoplankton/algae), and natural gas (biomass degraded under anaerobic conditions) over the course of 100's of millions of years
• COAL, OIL, NATURAL GAS
• CO2 backpack exercise
• Props needed: bathroom scale, large backpack, and household items (food, books, etc.) that combined weigh up to 140 pounds.
• Students first work together in pairs to use a carbon footprint calculator to determine their annual emissions in metric tons of CO2. They then convert those emissions to pounds per day and fill up the "CO2 backpack" with an equivalent weight.
  
• How long can you carry that around for?
  

Key concepts:

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Slides for CO2 emissions and atmospheric CO2 system (PowerPoint 2007 (.pptx) 2.7MB Jun14 12)

Key concepts:

• Finite nature of Earth's atmosphere
• Scale of CO2 emissions and accumulation of CO2 in atmosphere
• C cycle, stock-and-flow system of atmospheric CO2, with inflows (sources) and outflows (sinks)
• Use jug of water to demonstrate natural cycle in which inflows = outflows vs. current situation in which inflows > outflows
  
• Systems question: How is breathing out CO2 similar or different from CO2 emissions from burning fossil fuels?
• Show ETOM's clip from "It's Us"
• Students work in small groups to create causal loop diagrams of reinforcing and balancing feedback loops (split class in half): (1) rainforest becoming more arid under climate change; (2) increased length of growing season in some areas under a warming climate
  

Props: Iced tea jug, cup for inflows (burning/respiration) and cup for outflows (photosynthesis, marine sinks)

Introduction to the physical basis of the greenhouse effect

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Slides for physical basis of the greenhouse effect. (PowerPoint 2007 (.pptx) 32.7MB Jun14 12)

Key concepts:

• Compare and contrast the atmospheric composition of Earth's and Venus' atmosphere: major difference is in concentration of CO2 (and SO2)
  
• Greenhouse gases trap infrared radiation (heat) by absorbing and re-emitting radiation; other types of gases (e.g., O2, N2) are transparent to IR
• This effect is evident from the mean global temperature on Earth vs. Venus

Key systems concepts:

• Reinforcing feedback: sea ice-albedo loop and amplification of change at the poles
• Delays in systems and in climate change
• System with no effective delay: lowering my finger over a flame (lighter) - as soon as I feel the heat, I move my hand
• System with delay: place a mug of water between the flame and my finger. I don't feel the heat until the water has heated up
• Delays are common in systems with stocks.
• In this case, the stock is heat accumulating in the water - why do stocks cause delays?
• They take time to accumulate or decline.
  

Key concepts:

• Earth's climate has changed in the past due to natural forcing
  
• Changes within last few million years, such as ice age/interglacial oscillations, were due to small gradual changes in Earth's orbit and exposure to solar radiation
• Show ETOM clip
  
• Over Earth's 4.5 billion year history, the climate has been both warmer and colder than it is today
• Episodes of dramatic climate change may have occurred in Earth's past due to positive feedback loops in the climate system leading to abrupt changes
• Warming tends to occur more rapidly than cooling
• In some cases, climate change in Earth's past has also been associated with mass extinctions
• More examples of positive feedback loops:
  
• 
  
• Human civilization has only occurred during a period of stable climate (so far)
• Modern humans evolved ~200,000 years ago
• agriculture began about 11,000 years ago

Key concepts:

• Climate change affects health, food, infrastructure
• Extreme weather: Heat waves, wildfires, intense storms, floods
  
• Sea level rise
• Changes in ecosystem services
• Agriculture (current and current problems - Patrick Lynch)
  

• Agriculture: problems and solutions
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