Online Resources for Teachers
Compiled by Ximena Gallardo C.
The following is a list of resources and lessons selected from the vast pool of information on global warming being shared by educators around the country. Some of the lessons included were originally designed for high school students, but can easily be adapted to the college classroom.
- An Inconvenient Truth in the Classroom from An Inconvenient Truth’s Official Website
- http://www.participate.net/educators/ The lessons in this site are designed for the science classroom, and vary from a one-day lesson to a semester-long program.
- Educational Materials from Tufts Climate Initiative at Tufts University
- http://www.tufts.edu/tie/tci/Downloads.htm Materials on this site range from handouts on carbon offsets, to guides for conducting a greenhouse gas emissions inventory for colleges, to PowerPoint presentations on energy-based solutions for climate change.
- Global Warming Classroom Lessons from the New York Times Learning Network
- http://www.nytimes.com/learning/issues_in_depth/20060406.html Many lessons on this site are interdisciplinary. Subjects range from "exploring the impact of the enactment of the Kyoto Protocol on countries around the world" to "a lab experience about the effects of global warming on icecaps" to "exploring the effects of global warming on your community." The suggested time for many of the lessons is one hour.
- Guide to Using the Home Energy Saver in Classroom Projects to Audit the Energy Use from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
- http://energizedlearning.lbl.gov/ This site contains hands-on lessons that develop skills in science, mathematics, economics, social sciences, and politics.
- Lesson Plans from the Alliance to Save Energy
- http://www.ase.org/section/_audience/educators/lessons/high/ Lessons on this site range from requiring students to write a children’s story about saving energy to familiarizing students with electrical usage and pricing so that they can evaluate electrical items.
- PBS Companion Website to the NOVA Program What’s Up with the Weather?
- http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/warming/ This site contains a synopsis of the global warming debate, a teacher’s guide, transcripts of the program, the Carbon Diet Game, and more.
Resources from the Earth Day Network
- Educators Network
- http://www.earthday.net/involved/teachers/editteacher.aspx This page contains lessons ranging from exploring the writings of Henry David Thoreau, to comparing different consumption habits in developing and developed countries, to examining what makes a building green.
- Earth Day Network and Universities
- http://www.earthday.net/involved/teachers/universities.aspx This page contains campaign and action ideas for colleges to celebrate Earth Day.
- The Stabilization Wedges Game from the Princeton Environmental Institute at Princeton University
- http://www.princeton.edu/~cmi/resources/CMI_Wedge_Game_Jan_2007.pdf A fun game that "drives home the scale of the carbon mitigation challenge and the tradeoffs involved in planning climate policy." The game takes two to three fifty-minute periods. Thanks to Gary Richmond for sending information on this game to me.