Teaching Tips

• Educators have to request access to instructor materials by filling out a form but will need to do only once. When they are accepted into the system as an instructor, they will have all access to all such designated materials.
• This is a quantitative exercise and uses a spreadsheet program, both of which can be problematic for students. The activity provides several suggestions for helping students through the quantitative and graphing parts of the activity.
• This is the second of two case studies that examine the climate system. These case studies can be used independently or together, and there is an overarching teacher's guide that has lecture notes, assessment questions, and background information. https://serc.carleton.edu/integrate/teaching_materials/climate_change/unit5.html
• Student materials do not refer to the source of the data; however, the instructor materials do. Educators should let the students know where the data comes from and suggest that they enter this information in their spreadsheet with the data. The information is also in the slides.

About the Content

• This activity focuses on interpreting geoscientific data (atmospheric methane recorded in ice cores) and examining relative changes in climate.
• Comments from expert scientist:
  Scientific strengths:
  - Calculating rate of change
  - Converting temperatures
  - Analyzing data using Excel
  - Interpreting data and putting results into context
  
  Suggestions:
  - Should introduce "Radiation" and "Radiative forcing" earlier in the worksheet

About the Pedagogy

• Students graph and analyze atmospheric methane data from ice core records, and compare the relative forcing power of methane and CO₂. Using the methane data and current rate of change, students are asked to predict what is likely to happen to methane concentrations and associated atmospheric temperature changes and what humans would need to do to either mitigate or adapt to predicted changes.
• The activity also helps students connect their quantitative results with the implications for climate and for humans. This shows how numerical findings are useful.
• Activity includes Student Instructions, Student data sheet, Instructor Guidelines, and PowerPoint presentation.

• This resource engages students in using scientific data.
  See other data-rich activities

Technical Details/Ease of Use

• This activity is well thought out and carefully described. All of the materials are included, and each step of the process is thoroughly documented. Supplemental resources are also provided.
• The student and instructor document files have different and somewhat generic names, unlike how the name for the link appears in the instructions. Instructors should be aware and make sure they have the downloaded files identified appropriately.