This NASA animation depicts thermohaline circulation in the ocean and how it relates to salinity and water density. It illustrates the sinking of water in the cold, dense ocean near Iceland and Greenland. The surface of the ocean then fades away and the animation pulls back to show the global thermohaline circulation system.

This web-based activity tackles the broad reasons for undertaking ocean exploration - studying the interconnected issues of climate change, ocean health, energy and human health. Students examine the types of technology ocean scientists use to collect important data.

This short animated video provides a general overview of the atmosphere, carbon dioxide, and the greenhouse effect.

This video shows some of the most dramatic fluctuations to our cryosphere in recent years, using visuals created with a variety of satellite-based data.

Homer, Alaska, has been taking action to reduce climate change for almost a decade. As the ten-year anniversary of their first plan looms on the horizon, the community is engaging in conversations about adaptation.

Hurricane Sandy served as a wake-up call for many coastal communities along the East Coast: they learned that planning and preparation for future hazards and climate change impacts needs to take place before the next disaster. As this type of planning was new to many communities, they needed assistance in identifying the most beneficial data, tools, and resources that could inform their local planning and decision making.

Student teams use the engineering design process to create a useful product of their choice out of recyclable items and "trash." The class is given a "landfill" of reusable items, such as aluminum cans, cardboard, paper, juice boxes, chip bags, egg cartons, milk cartons, etc., and each group is allowed a limited amount of bonding materials, such as duct tape, hot glue and string. This activity addresses the importance of reuse and encourages students to look at ways they can reuse items they would otherwise throw away.

This Guide for Educators was developed by the MIT Environmental Solutions Initiative as an extension of our TILclimate (Today I Learned: Climate) podcast, to make it easier for you to teach climate change, earth science, and energy topics in the classroom. It is an extension of the TILclimate episode "TIL about everyday travel."

This video describes the role that dendrochronology plays in understanding climate change, especially changes to high elevation environments at an upper tree line. Dendrochronologists from the Big Sky Institute sample living and dead trees, describe how correlations between trees are made, and explain how tree cores record climate changes.

This activity describes the flow of carbon in the environment and focuses on how much carbon is stored in trees. It goes on to have students analyze data and make calculations about the amount of carbon stored in a set of trees at three sites in a wooded area that were to be cut down to build a college dormitory.

CO2 video "Trends in Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide" from NOAA Earth System Research Laboratory. Demonstrates the change in atmospheric carbon dioxide in an animated and annotated graph.

Video is found on NOAA's ESRL Global Monitoring page (https://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/history.html), which also includes data points from Mauna Loa, Hawaii, global data, and an imbedded video demonstrating CO2 emissions.

This visualization is a website with an interactive calculator that allows for estimation of greenhouse gas production from croplands in the United States.

This is a real-time map of current drought conditions in the US, which can be zoomed to the state level, with access to many more resources at that level. Some of these include the National Drought Regional Summaries and animations of historical data.

This flow chart shows the sources and activities across the U.S. economy that produce greenhouse gas emissions.

This module contains five activities, in increasing complexity, that focus on understanding how to interpret and manipulate sea level data, using real data from NOAA. Students first need to understand how to access and interpret sea surface height and tide data. To understand how to interpret these data, students will review and practice computing mean values. Along the way, they will learn how different factors, such as storms, affect tide levels and how to measure them. The goal is for students to become experienced with these kinds of data and the tools for accessing them so that, by the end of the module, they can continue to explore data sets driven by their own inquiry.

This unit will help 4th or 5th grade teachers prepare students to explore two big questions related to the Earth’s changing climate. The primary goal is to nurture an understanding of the element carbon, Earth’s carbon cycle, and how carbon dioxide and other gases contribute to the planet warming greenhouse effect of Earth’s atmosphere. The questions are:

1) What is carbon and why are all living things on Earth considered to be carbon-based lifeforms?

2) What is the greenhouse effect and why should we care about how much carbon is in our atmosphere?

These questions align with the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) for 4th grade that many states have adopted or adapted.1 An annotated list of the applicable NGSS and state science standards can be found in the appendix of this curriculum unit.

Under the NGSS, 4th grade students study concepts related to energy and learn that all fuels used to meet our continuously growing energy demand are derived from natural resources. Consequently, the production and usage of some energy resources adds more carbon dioxide to Earth’s atmosphere. Students are just beginning to develop an understanding of how human activities can impact the Earth and result in either positive or negative consequences.

This lesson plan has students working in small groups to research the Mountain Pine Beetle in Colorado and other inter-mountain Western states. Students identify the factors that control pine beetle population and research how warmer winters and decreasing spring snowpack allow the population of pine beetles to expand.

Unit plans for Grades K-2 and 3-5 are a regular feature of the magazine Beyond Weather and the Water Cycle. The plans draw on articles and resources in a themed issue and are aligned with national science and language arts standards. This unit is designed to provide elementary students with the opportunity to investigate how the annual rings in trees help scientists learn about past climates. It uses hands-on experiences and nonfiction text to answer the unit question: How do trees help scientists learn about the past?

In this video segment adapted from the International Institute for Sustainable Development, Inuit observers describe how their traditional understanding of weather patterns is being challenged by unpredictable weather behaviors.

In this EarthLabs activity, learners explore the concepts of coral bleaching, bleaching hot spots and degree-heating weeks. Using data products from NOAA's Coral Reef Watch, students identify bleaching hot spots and degree-heating weeks around the globe as well as in the Florida Keys' Sombrero Reef to determine the impact higher-than-normal sea surface temperatures have on coral reefs.