Climate ChangeI've structured my teaching on climate change based on the five points I first heard articulated by Jon Krosnick at in a lecture at Stanford:
1. It's warming 2. It's us 3. We're sure 4. It's bad 5. We can fix it (see the World Cafe teaching activity I designed fall 2014). (These points are elaborated in a journal article (Krosnick et al., 2006, Climatic Change), and have subsequently been used in further research, e.g., this article by Ding et al. (2011) in Nature Climate Change on scientific certainty and support for climate policy.) I'm currently working with a team of eight LUMES students to compile and analyze teaching resources about climate change under these categories. We'll present our work at the American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting in December 2014- stay tuned for an update! Below are just a few materials I find useful for teaching about climate change. |
At the Lund People's Climate March with LUMES students, September 2014. My sign reads "Climate Science 101: It's warming, it's us, we're sure, it's bad, we can fix it." (After Jon Krosnick.)
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Online Courses and Course Development Resources
Prof. Sarah Burch and Dr. Sara Harris of the University of British Columbia have a free Coursera course called "Climate Literacy: Navigating Climate Change Conversations," featuring excellent visuals, clear explanations, and self-paced quizzes.
Prof. Michael Mann has posted the full course materials for his Penn State course, "From Meteorology to Mitigation: Understanding Global Warming."
Carleton College has a nice site, "Teach the Earth," with resources for teaching climate change, including activities, course descriptions, and visualizations.
Prof. Arnold Bloom has put his "Climate Change: Causes, Consequences, and Solutions" course at UC Davis online, including videos and assignments.
Textbooks
Michael Mann and Lee Kump. 2008. Dire Predictions: Understanding Global Warming - The Illustrated Guide to the Findings of the IPCC.
This book has very clear illustrations and links to the findings of the previous version of the IPCC reports (AR4). It's still a useful teaching resource.
Sarah Burch and Sara Harris. Understanding Climate Change: Science, Policy, and Practice. 2014.
A book version of their excellent online course at the University of British Columbia.
Stephen H. Schneider, Armin Rosencranz, Michael D. Mastrandrea, and Kristin Kuntz-Duriseti. 2009. Climate Change Science and Policy.
An edited volume that includes impacts, policy, and mitigation.
Web Resources
The Yale Project on Climate Change Communication has a lot of material, especially on psychological perceptions of how people understand climate change and their political views. See the "Climate Notes" in particular, which are short highlights of recent research and news, often including a key figure that would be interesting to include for teaching.
Global Carbon Atlas: "The Global Carbon Atlas is a platform to explore and visualize the most up-to-date data on carbon fluxes resulting from human activities and natural processes. Human impacts on the carbon cycle are the most important cause of climate change."
"Everything you need to know about global warming," by Brad Plumer at Vox.com. A succinct visual tour of climate change.
Prof. Michael Mann has posted the full course materials for his Penn State course, "From Meteorology to Mitigation: Understanding Global Warming."
Carleton College has a nice site, "Teach the Earth," with resources for teaching climate change, including activities, course descriptions, and visualizations.
Prof. Arnold Bloom has put his "Climate Change: Causes, Consequences, and Solutions" course at UC Davis online, including videos and assignments.
Textbooks
Michael Mann and Lee Kump. 2008. Dire Predictions: Understanding Global Warming - The Illustrated Guide to the Findings of the IPCC.
This book has very clear illustrations and links to the findings of the previous version of the IPCC reports (AR4). It's still a useful teaching resource.
Sarah Burch and Sara Harris. Understanding Climate Change: Science, Policy, and Practice. 2014.
A book version of their excellent online course at the University of British Columbia.
Stephen H. Schneider, Armin Rosencranz, Michael D. Mastrandrea, and Kristin Kuntz-Duriseti. 2009. Climate Change Science and Policy.
An edited volume that includes impacts, policy, and mitigation.
Web Resources
The Yale Project on Climate Change Communication has a lot of material, especially on psychological perceptions of how people understand climate change and their political views. See the "Climate Notes" in particular, which are short highlights of recent research and news, often including a key figure that would be interesting to include for teaching.
Global Carbon Atlas: "The Global Carbon Atlas is a platform to explore and visualize the most up-to-date data on carbon fluxes resulting from human activities and natural processes. Human impacts on the carbon cycle are the most important cause of climate change."
"Everything you need to know about global warming," by Brad Plumer at Vox.com. A succinct visual tour of climate change.
