Before taking the SoS Climate Change course I thought I had a fairly solid foundation on what factors cause climate to change and how those factors interact, how climate has changed over the past hundreds of millions of years and how scientist predict the future climate of our planet. I soon found out that I merely had a solid scaffold on which to build a much better understanding for myself and my students. The biggest take away for me was how Earth’s systems all work together and that there are so many factors to take into account to explain how and why the climate changes. I had a good understanding about how Earth’s systems (geosphere, hydrosphere and atmosphere) worked individually but never took into account that they worked together
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As the oceans absorb more energy, more heat is distributed back to the atmosphere and throughout the oceans, thus causing more melting of glaciers and polar ice causing more freshwater to mix with the saltwater thus causing the salinity to decrease thus decreasing the density of the saltwater which in turn will decrease the amount of CO2 that is being absorbed by the oceans. Prior to taking the class I view each phenomenon as a separate event, not linking the cause and effect throughout Earth’s system. The second most important outcome is that I now have significantly more resources to use when discussing climate change, both professionally and personally. Now when I participate in conversations about climate change I do not sound like someone rehashing the same arguments that the general public has heard over and over again. I also have a much better understanding of where all the sides of the ‘Global Warming (climate change) is caused by man’ vs ‘Global Warming (climate change) is a naturally occurring event and man cannot stop it’ vs ‘all the models are wrong-nobody knows what’s going on’ debate. The third most important outcome is on a more personal level, I found out that I do not particularly enjoy participation in online discussions. I tend to overthink and wanted to post original strands but often by the time I had my response figured out someone else had already posted what I wanted …show more content…
I have decided that climate change will be the unifying theme throughout the year. I started off my first unit on Earth Systems with an article about what triggers ice ages. The article explained that over the past 60 million years that there have been three major cooling events and that we are still in a technical ice age and that there were many factors that have contributed to climate changes but the most relevant cause is the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere. This article really did peak my student’s curiosity and because of the information learned in the course I was able to more thoroughly explain just enough to provide a great framework on which to build the rest of the unit on and still keep their interest. I am also planning on using my final project lesson plan on the impact that volcanos has on climate change at the end of this unit to link the Earth’s Systems unit to the climate change unit where I will begin with climate drivers. The information that was learned during week one will be used to enhance my classroom instruction when I am addressing Performance Expectations HS-ESS2-2 and HS-ESS3-5. The topics from week two of the course will help with HS-ESS2-4 and HS-ESS3-5. The videos on the Carbon cycle and ocean acidification will be used as well as the case study based on Gretchen Hofmann’s work on
As the oceans absorb more energy, more heat is distributed back to the atmosphere and throughout the oceans, thus causing more melting of glaciers and polar ice causing more freshwater to mix with the saltwater thus causing the salinity to decrease thus decreasing the density of the saltwater which in turn will decrease the amount of CO2 that is being absorbed by the oceans. Prior to taking the class I view each phenomenon as a separate event, not linking the cause and effect throughout Earth’s system. The second most important outcome is that I now have significantly more resources to use when discussing climate change, both professionally and personally. Now when I participate in conversations about climate change I do not sound like someone rehashing the same arguments that the general public has heard over and over again. I also have a much better understanding of where all the sides of the ‘Global Warming (climate change) is caused by man’ vs ‘Global Warming (climate change) is a naturally occurring event and man cannot stop it’ vs ‘all the models are wrong-nobody knows what’s going on’ debate. The third most important outcome is on a more personal level, I found out that I do not particularly enjoy participation in online discussions. I tend to overthink and wanted to post original strands but often by the time I had my response figured out someone else had already posted what I wanted …show more content…
I have decided that climate change will be the unifying theme throughout the year. I started off my first unit on Earth Systems with an article about what triggers ice ages. The article explained that over the past 60 million years that there have been three major cooling events and that we are still in a technical ice age and that there were many factors that have contributed to climate changes but the most relevant cause is the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere. This article really did peak my student’s curiosity and because of the information learned in the course I was able to more thoroughly explain just enough to provide a great framework on which to build the rest of the unit on and still keep their interest. I am also planning on using my final project lesson plan on the impact that volcanos has on climate change at the end of this unit to link the Earth’s Systems unit to the climate change unit where I will begin with climate drivers. The information that was learned during week one will be used to enhance my classroom instruction when I am addressing Performance Expectations HS-ESS2-2 and HS-ESS3-5. The topics from week two of the course will help with HS-ESS2-4 and HS-ESS3-5. The videos on the Carbon cycle and ocean acidification will be used as well as the case study based on Gretchen Hofmann’s work on