Published by Australian Academy of Science
Activities | Enhanced greenhouse effect – a hot international topic

1. Temperature increases in a mini-greenhouse

2. Data on carbon dioxide emissions

3. Reducing greenhouse gas emissions

Other activities

• Australian Government Bureau of Meteorology
  • Climate change – students investigate natural and human activities that cause climate change.

• Metro magazine (Australia)
  • An inconvenient truth – provides a study guide to the movie of the same name.

• The Weather Makers (Australia)
  • Thinking about climate change: A guide for teachers and students – contains information and a range of activities relating to climate change.

• Project AIRE (United States Environmental Protection Agency, New England)
  • Climate and the greenhouse effect – students predict then measure the warming effect of sunlight.

• Science upd8 (UK)
  You need to register to access activities but they are free.
  • Global warming: Do 'the facts' stand up? – students interpret the iconic ‘hockey stick' graph, estimate when the Earth could be 1°C hotter, and defend challenges to their own conclusions.
  • Our atmosphere: Hottest investment – students familiarise themselves with climate change and the factors that prevent us from taking collective action to ameliorate the situation.
  • Climate change: What will you do? – students plan campaigns to get students and teachers at school to take action to combat climate change.

• Science by email (CSIRO, Australia)
• Try this: Discover a changing climate in an ice core – students make an ice core to simulate different periods in Earth’s history.

• Classroom of the Future (NASA, USA)
  • Fossil fuel burning – students compare the CO₂ released by fossil fuel burning to the actual increase in atmospheric CO₂.

• Xpeditions (National Geographic, USA)
  • Climate and CO₂: Analysing their relationship – students speculate on various scenarios of future world climates if the greenhouse effect increases.

• New York Times Learning Network (USA)
  • Clearing the air – students investigate emissions that contribute to global warming, and present to a mock international summit recommendations for reversing the global warming trend.
  • Ice breakers – students demonstrate several physical properties of ice, then relate these properties to the effects of global warming on icecaps.
  • Walking on thin ice? – students examine scientific evidence of changes in the Arctic ice cover.
  • Weathering the weather – students explore the effects of global warming on their community.
  • Tending to the greenhouse – students examine global warming – its causes, effects and solutions.

• University of Buffalo (USA)
  • The petition: A global warming case study – provides a case study and a series of questions. Case teaching notes are available.

• Global warming: Early warning signs (USA)
  • Curriculum guide for the climate impacts map – suggests four activities to use with a map (http://www.climatehotmap.org) that illustrates the local consequences of global warming.

• Check out the Activities at our topic on carbon emissions trading.