Environmental Study of Climate Change
Middle School                                      PDF of this activity

Title     Human Decisions and activities have had a profound impact on the physical and living environment. 

Time Schedule            Group Research Project

 Objectives:

 The student will be able to:

 ·         Realize the impacts humans have on the environment and animal species around them.

·         Identify what students can do now to preserve the environment and be actively involved in environmental legislation in the future.

 National Science Standards

Regulation and Behavior: An organism’s behavior evolves through adaptation to its environment. How a species moves, obtains food, reproduces, and responds to danger are based in the species’ evolutionary history.

Populations and Ecosystems: For ecosystems, the major source of energy is sunlight. Energy entering ecosystems as sunlight is transferred by producers into chemical energy through photosynthesis. That energy then passes from organism to organism in food webs.

The number of organisms an ecosystem can support depends on the resources available and abiotic factors such as quantity of light and water, range of tempetrature, and soil composition. Lack of resources and other factors, such as predation and climate, limit the growth of populations in specific niches in the ecosystem.

Extinction of a species occurs when the environment changes and the adaptive characteristics of a species are insufficient to allow its survival. Extinction of species is common; most of the species that have lived on the earth no longer exist.

Introduction 

 What are the affects of climate change and what can be done to preserve the environment?

Vocabualry

            Climate change

            Carbon Dioxide

            Greenhouse gases

            Photosynthesis

Materials

            Class prepared project web

            Access to internet or information on project web topics

 Procedure

Introduction

10 min.-Students as a class will make a web of the important issues surrounding the topic of climate change. See example attached (created on Inspiration software).

5 min.-Students are arranged into groups and select the part of the web that most interests them to research. (Overlapping should be avoided if possible to provide a wide range of topics and information to be presented by each group)

2 Classes- Students will spend two class days compiling research on their topic.

1 Class- Students will coordinate their research and plan a presentation of their findings.

HW-Students will have one week to finish collecting research and coordinate group presentation

1-2 Classes- Group Presentations

Assessment

            Students will be graded on their presentations according to the rubric attached.

Extensions

• Presentations can be expanded to create research papers
• Presentations can be used as basis for discussions on protecting the environment.
• Students can write a reflective summary on what they have learned from the presentations.
• Students can have a letter writing campaign to a local government official.

Environmental Study of Climate Change
High School

Objectives: The student will be able to:

 ·         Realize the impacts humans have on the environment and animal species around them.

·         Identify what students can do now to preserve the environment and be actively involved in environmental legislation in the future.

Introduction:

 What are the affects of climate change and what can be done to preserve the environment?

Vocabulary

Climate change

Coral Bleaching Plant proteins

Carbon Dioxide

Deforestation

Carbon Dioxide sinks

Greenhouse gases 

Fossil Fuels

Migration patterns

Photosynthesis

Kyoto Protocol

Extinction rates
 

Materials

             Class prepared project web

            Access to internet or information on project web topics

Procedure

Introduction

10 min.-Students as a class will make a web of the important issues surrounding the topic of climate change. See example attached (created on Inspiration software).

5 min.-Students are arranged into groups and select the part of the web that most interests them to research. (Overlapping should be avoided if possible to provide a wide range of topics and information to be presented by each group)

2-5 Classes- Students will spend two to five class days compiling research on their topic.

1-3 Classes- Students will coordinate their research and plan a presentation of their findings.

HW-Students will have one to three weeks to finish collecting research and coordinate group presentation

1-4 Classes- Group Presentations

Assessment

            Students will be graded on their presentations according to the rubric attached.

Extensions

• Presentations can be expanded to create research papers
• Presentations can be used as basis for discussions on protecting the environment.
• Students can write a reflective summary on what they have learned from the presentations.
• Students can have a letter writing campaign to a local government official.
• Students can debate the issue of whether to pass legislation to reduce the use of fossil fuels or not.
• Students can complete internships with researchers in this line of research
• Students can have a second Video Conference to present their findings to a scientist in the field.
• Students can create their own research experiment using scientific methods.