1. UNIT CONFERENCE1 SNC2DT-CLIMATE CHANGE NICOLE, ROBIN, AND RICHARD

2. LEARNING GOALS

3. ESSENTIAL AND GUIDING QUESTIONS “What are the natural and human factors that effect and influence climate change around the globe.? How successful are current initiatives in addressing this issue?”

4. ESSENTIAL AND GUIDING QUESTIONS 1.What are the natural and human influenced factors that affect the climate change observed within the recent history of the earth? Explain the mechanism of action of those factors and describe potential solutions to remedy 2.What governmental policies exist (on both a local and global platform) that address the issue of climate change? How do they compare (similar and contrasting) to grassroots movements to alleviate the human aspect of climate change? 3.What is a potential hypothesis that ties in the ideas of heat transfer, water affect, and greenhouse effect to climate change? What kind of methods could you employ to test and illustrate this hypothesis? 4.How is climate change perceived in different geographic regions locally and globally? What influence has media had upon the representation of this issue, and what potential biases are inherent within them?

5. UNIT PLAN Day 1 Earth’s Climate is powered by the sun Components of Climate system (d2.1, d3.1 Day 2 Earth’s Climate system includes: atmosphere, hydrosphere, and living things (d2.1, d 2.7, d3.2 Day 3 Greenhouse Effect: Keeps earth warm by trapping thermal energy (d3.6 d3.3 (d2.5 Day 4 Thermal Energy: Transferred within Earth’s Climate system through ocean and air currents (d2.7 Day 5 Earth’s Climate: Long-term and short- term changes (d3.8 Assessment Day 6 Scientists use natural ice cores, sediment layers, fossils, and tree rings to study past climates (d2.3 Day 7 Changing Climate: What is the evidence? (d.24 d3.8 Day 8 Natural Phenomena: levels of greenhouse gases. Sources and sinks (d3.4 d3.7 Day 9 Anthropogenic greenhouse effect: What is the evidence? Cause and Effect (d2.2 d3.7 Day 10 The Greenhouse Effect DEBATE Human causes vs. Natural causes EVALUATION Day 11 LAB Thermal Expansion and Sea Level (d2.6 Day 12 Impact of Climate Change Research Presentations d1.1., d2.1 Day 13 Climate models: A means of analyzing how different factors effect climate change (d2.8 STSE Day 14 Impact of Climate change PRESENTATIONS Global, Arctic & Ontario (d1.1 Day 15 Impact of Climate change PRESENTATIONS Global, Arctic Ontario (d1.1, d2.1 Assessment Day 16 Large scale initiatives to prevent climate change d1.2 Day 17 Individual initiative to prevent climate change d1.2 Day 18 Climate change: perspectives & bias in science & media d2.9 STSE Day 19 Unit test Day 20 LAB EVALUATION

6. MISCONCEPTIONS Misconception: Climate change is a hoax. Fact: It is clear from long-term temperature records that the world is warming. It is becoming clear that human activities, mainly burning fossil fuels and deforestation, are part of the cause of this warming. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is the leading international body for the assessment of climate change. Misconception: Climate change and the loss of the ozone layer are pretty much the same thing. Fact: The largest contributor to global warming is carbon dioxide gas. CFCs, gases that cause stratospheric ozone depletion, play only a minor role in climate change.

7. Misconception: Aerosol spray cans are a major contributor to climate change. Fact: Using aerosol spray cans have almost no effect on climate change. Misconception: General pollution and toxic chemicals are major contributors to climate change. Fact: Most forms of pollution play little or no role in climate change. The invisible carbon dioxide released when coal, oil, and gas are burned is the single most important contributor to climate change. Misconception: The space program is a major contributor to climate change because it punches holes in the atmosphere. Fact: The space program has almost no effect on climate change. The local changes rockets make in the atmosphere soon disappear. Misconception: Using nuclear power causes climate change. Fact: Nuclear power does not contribute to climate change.

8. Misconception: Climate is the same as weather. Fact: Weather describes the atmospheric conditions, temperature, precipitation, wind and humidity in a particular location over a short period of time, a day or a week. Climate is the average of the weather in a region over a long period of time. Misconception: The sun is stronger at the equator than at latitudes towards either of the poles. Fact: The angle of incidence of light from the sun increases with distance from the equator. The same amount of solar radiation is spread out over a larger surface area at polar latitudes.

9. ACTIVITY CAROUSEL OVERVIEW

10. SAFETY CONSIDERATIONS

11. SOCIETAL APPLICATIONS

12. ANNOTATED REFERENCES Science Teachers’ Association of Ontario (STAO) STAO is an organization of science educators that provides an assortment of valuable resources, such as: conferences, periodicals, and an online repository of course-specific activities, labs, and demonstrations. Nelson Science Perspectives 10, 2010 Pearson Investigating Science 10, 2009 Grade 10 Science textbooks Cool 2.0 http://cool.greenlearning.ca/http://cool.greenlearning.ca/ A go to hub for climate change information, lesson plans and activities. Ask Dr. Global Change http://www.gcrio.org/doctorgc/index.phphttp://www.gcrio.org/doctorgc/index.php Part of the U.S. Global Change Research Information Office website