The Climate Change Science Unit
Teacher’s Guide
Grade 10 Science (Ontario, Academic SNC2D)
Prepared by GreenLearning Canada
Autumn of 2012
The Climate Change Science Unit, Teacher’s Guide
http://cool.greenlearning.ca/database/view.html?ItemID=1563
Published online, October 2012
©2012 The Green Learning Canada Foundation
Contact GreenLearning Canada
c/o Gordon Harrison
Phone: 613.256.1487
eMail: gordonh@greenlearning .ca
The Climate Change Science Unit team includes:
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Doug Fraser, retired science teacher,
Gordon Harrison, is Executive Director of GreenLearning Canada and lead the CCSU team.
Stephen MacKinnon, eLearning consultant for GreenLearning Canada. He has 35 years secondary teaching
experience in computer studies. His students produced many award winning web sites.
Gayle Miller is currently the Science department head at Moira Secondary School in Belleville where she
teaches grade 9 and 10 Science, as well as senior Biology and Chemistry. She sees inquiry based teaching
and hands-on investigations as critical for science learners.
Meg O’Mahony
Table of Contents
Introduction
GreenLearning Canada
COOL 2.0, the platform for CCSU
The Unit
 Unit Plan
 Linked to Ontario Curriculum Expectations
 Teaching the Module in an Online Environment
 Linking your Students to Experts
 Supporting Positive Student Action
 A Living Unit
Teacher’s Versions
 Lesson #1, Pre-test, Teacher’s Version
 Lesson #14, Post-test, Teacher’s Version
Teachers Guide, Climate Change Science Unit
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Page 1
Introduction
Welcome to the Climate Change Science Unit, or CCSU, a comprehensive package of lessons, learning activities
and supplemental resources on climate change designed for the Climate Change unit in the Ontario Grade 10
Science course (Academic SNC2D). It provides one-stop shopping, everything a teacher needs to deliver on the
curriculum expectations of the Ontario Grade 10 unit.
Although developed initially for Ontario, we know CCSU would be useable in other provincial curricula and equally
engaging for students in these provinces. We invite teachers in other provinces to contact us regarding
collaboration to adapt CCSU for your particular provincial curriculum.
CCSU was developed by a team of exceptional science teachers working closely with the GreenLearning team.
Climate change can be a discouraging issue for students and for us all. That’s why we believe that students must
be connected to solutions and real change. CCSU is designed to connect your students to the world outside the
classroom, to companies and institutions that are driving solutions, to students engaged in collaborative projects
and positive action, and to experts in climate change science.
Student action is integral to learning and student engagement and positive action is built in to CCSU.
Please watch our websites — http://www.greenlearning.ca/ and http://cool.greenlearning.ca — for information
on dates and times of online PD sessions on CCSU.
GreenLearning is pleased to partner with the Science Teachers Association of Ontario to promote and deliver
CCSU to teachers across Ontario.
We hope you find CCSU effective in teaching and learning in your classroom. We welcome your feedback and
suggestions via email to info@greenlearning.ca. We encourage you to contribute to CCSU with your favourite
lessons and resources in COOL 2.0 (http://cool.greenlearning.ca.
In October of 2012, GreenLearning launched the first seven lessons of the fourteen that will comprise the
complete module. The next iteration will include the remaining lessons; beyond that we plan to develop a
version specifically for online teaching and learning.
GreenLearning Canada
The GreenLearning Canada Foundation is a national registered charitable organization dedicated to
environmental and sustainability education.
GreenLearning Canada envisions a generation of young Canadians who are enabled and inspired to actively create
a sustainable and just world. Our mission is to create and deliver innovative teaching resources and rich
educational experiences that empower young Canadians to create positive social and environmental change in
their own lives, schools, and communities.
Teachers Guide, Climate Change Science Unit
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GreenLearning works with and supports Canadian teachers in engaging their students in authentic learning and
positive action. To do so, we work closely with provincial departments of education, local school boards, faculties
of education, and leading environmental education organizations.
GreenLearning develops innovative curriculum resources that are linked to provincially mandated curricula and
that develop student knowledge and skills in ways that are engaging, balanced, authentic, and meaningful. This
national education programs addresses critical energy environment issues and solutions: climate change,
renewable energy technologies, and energy conservation and efficiency.
GreenLearning builds the capacity of teachers to deliver engaging energy-sustainability education through teacher
outreach, training and support. To do so we have established a network of school board partners that assist us in
reaching and training teachers.
Students participating in GreenLearning programs have a deeper understanding of energy in their lives: where
energy comes from, the impacts of all forms of energy, and the energy choices and options for a sustainable
future. GreenLearning programs stimulate students to think critically, assess options, make decisions, take
positive action, and influence others – in short, GreenLearning inspires, engages and empowers today’s young
people to lead our world to a sustainable future.
COOL 2.0, the home of CSU
CCSU lives on COOL 2.0, our online community for teaching and learning about Climate Change at
http://www.greenlearning.ca/cool.
COOL 2.0 is a database of the best education resources on energy and sustainability:
 videos, learning activities ,primary-source resources and collaborative projects,
 for grades 4 through 12 in science, social studies, language arts, design and technology,
careers,economics, and other subject areas
 fully searchable by topic, grade, subject and more,
 contributed by teachers, GreenLearning, and its over-25 program partners.
In the COOL 2.0 Teacher Space, teachers can:
 customize any resource from the database for their students,
 create assignments that integrate blogs, mapping, online discussions, and media galleries, and other
online tools
 create and manage collaborative learning,
 meet colleagues, exchange ideas in the Teacher Forum, and team up to collaborate on class projects.
CCSU is designed to be used in COOL 2.0 or offline — or a hybrid; for offline, the materials can be download
from COOL 2.0 and used as you would any other materials you download from the web: printed and handed
out, projected on a screen or WhiteBoard, etc.
Teachers Guide, Climate Change Science Unit
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The Unit
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Unit Plan
The unit was designed for the Ontario Grade 10 Science unit on climate change (Ontario, Academic SNC2D)
but can be easily adapted to other provincial course curricula. The following is the unit plan (* indicates the
lesson is still to be developed):
Lesson
Introduction
1. Sila Alangotok Video—
Lesson Plan
2.
3.
Jigsaw: Climate Change in
Canada*
Taking Action — Reducing
Your GHG Emissions
4.
eCards, Climate Change
module
5.
Resource Assignment*
The Science of Climate Change
6. Earth's Energy Budget
7.
Natural Factors Affecting
Earth's Climate
8.
Convection Currents Move
Teachers Guide, Climate Change Science Unit
Description & Notes
Sila Alangotok based on the video by the same name, this lesson explores
Traditional Ecological Knowledge and its role in understanding Climate
Change. Includes pre-test.
This lesson, to be developed, will look at the impacts of climate change in
Canada by region.
Using GreenLearning’s GHG calculator, students identify and commit to
personal actions to reduce their GHG emissions. During the course of
teaching this unit, students can check in on their actions. As part of the
Culminating Activity (Lesson #14), students calculate the actual reduction in
GHG emissions that resulted from their individual and collective actions and
reflect on this.
There are many youth climate change action organizations and websites
such as http://www.ourclimate.ca/wordpress/ & http://youthclimate.org/ &
http://www.commit2act.org/
On the standalone eCards website, students research an energy-related
topic, create an eCard with their own informed message and artwork,
receive teacher feedback and approval, and then email their eCards to a
family member, friend, principal, or community leader. Students augment
their research with an Ask an Expert feature. ecards.greenlearning.ca.
In this lesson, to be developed, students identify and review resources on
climate change and set up a resource page collaboratively by posting the
resources they found in the class blog section of the COOL 2.0 website.
This PowerPoint lesson covers the topics of: Earth’s energy budget,
Atmospheric Layers (troposphere, stratosphere, mesosphere, thermosphere,
location of ozone layer), Montreal Protocol and remediation of ozone
destruction by CFC’s), Greenhouse Effect (natural and anthropogenic),
Greenhouse Gases (GHG). It begins with a teacher demonstration of heat
transfer by radiation (review of
grade 7 science). Videoclips are embedded into the powerpoint.
Natural factors such as the Milankovitch cylces, sunspots and El Nino affect
our climate. This lesson examines the science of these natural factors. It
complements other lessons exploring the impact of human activity on our
climate (CCSU Lesson #6) and the scientific evidence of climate change such
as tree rings and ice cores (CCSU Lesson #s 9 and 10 respectively).
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9.
Heat around the Earth*
Evidence of Factors
Affecting Climate Change
(The Past – Tree Rings)
10. Evidence of Factors
Affecting Climate Change
(The Past – Ice Cores)
Dendrochronology or tree-ring dating is the scientific method of dating
based on the analysis of patterns of tree rings, also known as growth rings. It
can be used to determine certain aspects of past ecologies, particularly
climate. This lesson is an introduction to dendrochronology. It begins with a
short PowerPoint on dendrochronology. Embedded in the powerpoint is a
link to a video defining and describing dendrochronology (“Danign with Tree
Ringa”), and, a simple student interactive activity that allows them to learn
how tree cores can be used to give information about past climate (“Build a
Tree”). The lesson includes with three student activities
1. Tree Ring Detective
2. Dendrochronology and Climate Change Lab
3. Trees: Recorders of Climate Change (The Little Ice Age)
Ice core analysis is an effective tool for understanding climate over time and
how it is changing. This lesson and inquiry based activities allow students to
examine a simulated record of climate change. Through the study of ice core
samples, students gain a greater understanding of the natural systems
involved in climate change, the history of the Earth’s climate, and the human
influences on climate today.
The lesson begins with a 10 min TED videoclip on ice cores. It includes a wet
lab activity (Using Ice Cores to Collect Evidence of Past Climates) and a dry
lab activity where studemts analyze data patterns from an actual ice core
(Analysis of Ice Cores from Antarctica and Greenland).
11. Carbon Sinks & Sources*
12. Anthropomorphic Effects
on Climate*
Implications & Effects of Climate Change — Mitigating and Living with Change
http://cool.greenlearning.ca/database/view.html?ItemID=1563CCSU is designed to be used in the COOL 2.0
online environment or offline in the traditional classroom — or a hybrid; for offline, the materials
(readings, worksheets, powerpoint presentations) can be downloaded from COOL 2.0 and used as you
would any other materials you download from the web such as printed and handed out or projected on
a screen or WhiteBoard.
Why teach online? More and more teachers are teaching online. Online teaching and learning can make
effective use of social media to engage learners. In moving to online delivery, GreenLearning worked with
teachers to develop pedagogically sound approaches to online learning, particularly the use of social
media. Online teaching and learning are teacher-led, facilitated and moderated. Online can support and
include class discussions and student collaboration in learning and/or action projects. CCSU is best taught
as a hybrid of online and offline, particularly the wet lab in lesson #10 for example. COOL 2.0 is a web
platform for teaching and learning about climate change that was designed by teachers. In the COOL 2.0
Teacher Space you will find a full range of Web 2.0 functionalities to support CCSU. Students working in
the COOL 2.0 Class Space can examine the lessons at their own time, place and space. They can interact
with the material and with students, teachers, climate change experts to engage in their climate change
learning.
Teachers Guide, Climate Change Science Unit
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All the CCSU lessons, backgrounders and videos can be found in the COOL 2.0 resource database. You can
access each lesson by name (see the unit plan above). All other resources required for the lesson will be
listed and attached to the particular lesson. You do not have to register to download and use any CCSU or
other resources in the COOL 2.0 Resource Database. However, to teach all or part of CCSU online, you will
need to register — it’s free - simply to ensure your and your students’ privacy and security (we verify that
anyone who registers is a teacher before providing them with a userid and password).
You manage and control the COOL 2.0 learning environment: You select the web functionalities you want
the students to use and can hide the ones you don’t want them to use. For example, you may wish them
to create a blog as the lesson assignment, hiding all the other functions. All student work online goes
through your class account which you control. The work of an individual student is placed in their folder
which other students cannot see or access.
Register and create your own Teacher Account:
Creating a Class and Add lessons and other resources: In preparing to teach the unit or individual lessons
online, you will create a Class space and then add the unit lessons to it.
Online Discussions: Post discussion questions in your Class space. Students respond to your question. You
and your students reply to others’ messages. Students explore the material by engaging in a dialogue.
Using Blogs: Students can create blogs as part of or all of an assignment. They can format the text, add
images and embed videos. Comments to blog entries can be used for student dialogue and discussion, as
well as teacher assessment.
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Invite an Expert into Your Class
Online discussions can also include the involvement of climate change experts, bringing the real world
into the online classroom. We are lining experts on the science of climate change, on renewable energy,
on policy, on teaching climate change and on student action. You can link your students to these experts
via video conference. Or link your students to the expert’s blog. Or link expert and students via email. The
expert could make a video presentation on their field of expertise and then engage your students through
question and answer. Or your students might check in with an expert as they plan their climate action
projects, getting initial advice and checking in as they go.
GreenLearning will facilitate your bringing one of these experts into your class, through COOL 2.0. Go to
http://cool.greenlearning.ca/database/view.html?ItemID=1539 ; we will be adding experts over the
coming months.
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CCSU — in COOL 2.0 — is a Living and Breathing Unit
GreenLearning will complete the lessons and continue to bring in more experts ready to connect with
your class and add more relevant resources to the database. We hope you will make CCSU yours:
Teachers Guide, Climate Change Science Unit
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as you teach a CCSU lesson, you may adapt it to your class — another grade and subject, for
differentiated learning, etc. — we encourage you to add your adaptation to the COOL 2.0
database (it’s easy) where other teachers can access and use it;
you may have a favourite lesson relevant to CCSU or you may create a lesson that would fit —
again, please add this to the database for other teachers to access and use.
It’s yours.
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Answer Sheets
Climate Change PRE-TEST (Lesson #1)
Ministry expectations (paraphrased):
D1.1 Impact of climate change on humans and natural systems (#10)
D1.2 Initiatives that exist to address climate change (#11)
D2.1 Vocabulary: albedo, anthropogenic, greenhouse gases (#1,#2,#3)
D2.4 Cause-effect relationship of something causing climate change (#5)
D3.1 Heat transfer in atmosphere and hydrosphere (#4)
D3.5 Carbon Sinks and Sources (#7,8)
D3.7 Greenhouse effect (#9)
D3.8 Describe indicators of climate change (#6)
Test is /22 total
Time = 20 min
/14 KU
/6 TI
/2 A
MC Questions (1 KU mark each= /4 KU)
Answers: 1b, 2d, 3d, 4e
1. Albedo refers to
a. a source of CO2
b. the reflection of incoming solar energy.
c. the impact of the moon's reflection on the solar energy absorbed.
d. an increase in white coats in Boreal animals.
e. a person in the Xenosaga Universe
2. Human caused changes are referred to as
a. anthrophotogenic
b. anthroclimatic
c. anthropological
d. anthropogenic
e. anthropic
3. Which of the following are greenhouse gases?
Teachers Guide, Climate Change Science Unit
Page 7
i. CO2
ii. NO2
iii. H2O
iv. N2
v. CH4 (methane)
Choose your answer. i, ii, iii, v
a. i, iv
b. iii,iv
c. i, ii, iii
d. i, ii, iii, v
e. all of them
4. Climate models are built based on known relationships, including
i. increased CO2 in the air leads to warmer global temperatures.
ii. light coloured surfaces (e.g. ice, snow) reduce the amount of heat trapped by the earth.
iii. human population density and ambient air temperature.
iv. prevailing wind patterns are governed by thermal convection cells.
v. percent of land cover by forest.
Choose your answer from:
a. i only
b. i and iv only
c. iv and v only
True/False
d. i, iii, v only
e. i, ii, iv only
(1 KU mark each= /2; note: wrong answers will be penalized 1 mark)
1. Trees can act both as carbon sinks and carbon sources.
T
F
T
2. Soils store about 30% of the earth's total carbon.
T
F
F - 3%
Fill-in-the-Blank (1 KU mark each line = /4) ;
1. Thermal energy is transferred through the atmosphere and the oceans by the process of
convection
2. Three indicators of climate change are:
Teachers Guide, Climate Change Science Unit
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any of:
increasing temperatures, desertification, sea level rise,
melting ice caps,
melting glaciers,
changes in wind patterns,
more severe weather events.
other logical answer.
Free Response
1. a.
/2
KU
b.
/2
TI
(total of 4 KU and 6 TI and 2 A )
What is the greenhouse effect?
Warming of the earth’s atmosphere as a result of greenhouse gases (or CO2) trapping
thermal (heat) energy
How does it occur? (/2 TI)
 CO2 and other Greenhouse Gases (GHG) are responsible
 they form a layer (primarily in the troposphere)
 they allow solar radiation to enter the earth
 but block the outgoing heat from leaving the atmosphere
 thereby heating of the atmosphere (as a whole) and the oceans and the
earth.
2. Name and briefly describe and effect of climate change on
a. humans
 increased heat related diseases (e.g. increased heat stroke in the elderly in
/2
summer)
 loss of fresh water rivers to supply India and China as glaciers melt
TI
 or other logical answer
/2
TI
b. natural ecosystems
 glaciers melting
 ice caps melting
 new species moving northward (in northern hemisphere) into new ecosystems
 or other logical answer
3. List and briefly explain
a. an initiative that exists to reduce climate change.
anything logical, could include
 reducing use of fossil fuels
IDENTIFY/NAME an initiative
 using public transportation
Briefly EXPLAIN it
/2
 planting more trees
K
 carbon taxes
U

b. why you think this does/does not work.
 student should be able to explain their answer by making reference to either
/2
a reduction in the production of greenhouse gases (or just CO2) and/or an
A
Teachers Guide, Climate Change Science Unit
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increase in Carbon Sequestration.
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