Geoengineering: Can it help our planet keep its cool?
Activities
Other activities
ARM Education (USA)
Planting trees – students calculate how many trees would be needed to absorb the carbon dioxide emitted by a car over one year.
Simple light scattering – students show how light is scattered by particles in water to model the scattering of light in the atmosphere by aerosol particles. This activity could be used to demonstrate proposed geoengineering schemes to inject sulfates into the atmosphere
Bringing climate change into the classroom – provides four activities for teaching students about climate change in general.
Climate Status Investigations (The Keystone Centre, USA)
Geologic sequestration – students conduct an experiment to learn about geologic carbon sequestration.
Oceanic absorption – oceanic sequestration – students conduct an experiment to compare how much carbon dioxide can be taken up by oceanic water and fresh water. They then consider ocean sequestration as a means of removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.
Arctic Alive (Arctic Research Consortium of the United States)
Geoscience careers – students research a career in geoscience or a field related to climate change and create a character working in that field. They then read about ways of dealing with climate change (including geoengineering) and answer questions from the perspective of their character. Includes lesson plan and student worksheet.
Policy debate/community meeting on climate change – using the character from the above activity, students justify their different positions on dealing with global warming in a ‘public meeting’. Includes a lesson plan and student worksheet.
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Australian Academy of Science.
Posted February
2010, edited August 2012.