Enhanced greenhouse effect – a hot international topic
Activities
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.
ClimateChangeNorth.ca Lesson Plans (Canada)
Greenhouse Effect...Building Our Own - details a simple experiment where students can simulate and analyse the greenhouse effect.
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.
University Corporation for Atmospheric Research LEARN: Atmospheric Science Explorers (USA)
The "Greenhouse Effect" - provides an overview of the scientific concepts relevant to the greenhouse effect and a number of classroom activities.
Learning to Give, Generation On (USA)
The Greenhouse Effect and Global Warming - a lesson plan for a dramatic enactment of the greenhouse effect.
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.
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.
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.
Page updated February 2012.