This interactive visualization adapted from NASA and the U.S. Geological Survey illustrates the concept of albedo, which is the measure of how much solar radiation is reflected from Earth's surface.
Material Type: Simulation
Students perform a lab to explore how the color of materials at Earth's surface affect the amount of warming. Topics covered include developing a hypothesis, collecting data, and making interpretations to explain why dark-colored materials become hotter.
Material Type: Activity/Lab
Hands-on laboratory activity that allows students to investigate the effects of distance and angle on the input of solar radiation at Earth's surface, the role played by albedo, the heat capacity of land and water, and how these cause the seasons. Students predict radiative heating based on simple geometry and experiment to test their hypotheses.
Material Type: Activity/Lab
This video focuses on the conifer forest in Alaska to explore the carbon cycle and how the forest responds to rising atmospheric carbon dioxide. Topics addressed in the video include wildfires, reflectivity, and the role of permafrost in the global carbon cycle.
Material Type: Activity/Lab
This National Geographic video explains the origins of the El Niño Southern Oscillation using animations and shows the impacts on humans, wildlife and habitat, particularly in the United States.
Material Type: Activity/Lab
This video, from the US Department of Energy, shows the basics of how a PV panel converts light radiated from the sun into usable power, whether on the electric grid or off, and without emissions or the use of fossil fuels.
Material Type: Activity/Lab
This interactive provides two scenarios for students to look at issues related to energy and climate change: from the perspective of either a family, or a monarch.
Material Type: Simulation
Students use Google Earth to analyze oil consumption per capita in the US and around the world. Students then use spreadsheets to create graphs and calculate statistics regarding per capita energy use among various categories.
Material Type: Activity/Lab
This activity is a learning game in which student teams are each assigned a different energy source. Working cooperatively, students use their reading, brainstorming, and organizational skills to hide the identity of their team's energy source while trying to guess which energy sources the other teams represent.
Material Type: Activity/Lab
This video provides an introduction to benefits and limitations of many sources of energy including fossil fuels, nuclear, hydro, wind, solar, geothermal and biomass. It also discusses hydrogen and hybrid cars.
Material Type: Lecture
This online calculator converts from one energy unit to another - from gallons to British thermal units (Btu), kilowatt/hours to megajoules, short tons to metric tons.
Material Type: Simulation
An activity focusing on black carbon. This activity explores the impacts of the use of black carbon generating wood, dung, and charcoal for fuel in developing countries.
Material Type: Activity/Lab
This activity introduces students to different forms of energy, energy transformations, energy storage, and the flow of energy through systems. Students learn that most energy can be traced back to nuclear fusion on the sun.
Material Type: Activity/Lab
This long classroom activity introduces students to a climate modeling software. Students visualize how temperature and snow coverage might change over the next 100 years. They run a 'climate simulation' to establish a baseline for comparison, do a 'experimental' simulation and compare the results. Students will then choose a region of their own interest to explore and compare the results with those documented in the IPCC impact reports. Students will gain a greater understanding and appreciation of the process and power of climate modeling.
Material Type: Activity/Lab
These flow charts show carbon dioxide emissions for each state, the District of Columbia and the entire United States. Emissions are distinguished by energy source and end use.
Material Type: Activity/Lab
This Energy Flow Charts website is a set of energy Sankey diagrams or flow charts for 136 countries constructed from data maintained by the International Energy Agency (IEA) and reflects the energy use patterns for 2007.
Material Type: Activity/Lab
Sankey (or Spaghetti) diagrams parse out the energy flow by state, based on 2008 data from the Dept. of Energy. These diagrams can help bring a local perspective to energy consumption. The estimates include rejected or lost energy but don't necessarily include losses at the ultimate user end that are due to lack of insulation.
Material Type: Activity/Lab
This is a semester-long jigsaw project in which students work in teams to explore the effects of energy resource development on local water resources, economics, and society. Students are presented with a contemporary energy resource development issue being debated in their community. They research the water, geological, economic, and social impact of the project, and then either defend or support the development proposal.
Material Type: Activity/Lab
In this activity, students make a model sea floor sediment core using two types of buttons to represent fossil diatoms. They then compare the numbers of diatom fossils in the sediment at different depths to determine whether the seas were free of ice while the diatoms were alive.
Material Type: Activity/Lab
In this lesson, students complete a Myers-Briggs Type Inventory of their personality type as an introductory step to understanding what green jobs might suit their personal styles. From the information on this online tool, they look at different green jobs to explore possible careers.
Material Type: Activity/Lab
