SYNOPSIS: This lesson introduces the connections between air quality and environmental justice.

SCIENTIST NOTES: This lesson illustrates how air quality is related to cardiorespiratory health and how environmental injustice exacerbates these issues in marginalized communities. A well-sourced list of resources is provided where students can learn about human respiration, environmental justice, air quality in New Jersey, and what is being done to address environmental injustice by both the state and the New Jersey Environmental Justice Alliance. Students are tasked with reviewing these sources and then sharing what they learned in a fishbowl discussion. This lesson is recommended for teaching.

POSITIVES:
-This lesson utilizes student choice, active listening, and active participation.
-Students are guided through a Fishbowl discussion which facilitates respectful listening and exchanging of opinions.

ADDITIONAL PREREQUISITES:
-Teachers should feel comfortable offering choice, allowing students independence and autonomy in their learning. This lesson encourages open conversation and monitoring regarding student held discussions.
-This resource is helpful for facilitating a Fishbowl discussion.
-Students will need access to the Teacher Slideshow in order to conduct their independent work.

DIFFERENTIATION:
-Students are able to work at their own pace and order for the playlist activity, but teachers can scaffold certain steps for students who need additional support.
-Teachers can create a sample guide for the independent playlist activity.
-Teachers can embed the necessary adjustments into the playlist and check boxes for students with special needs or considerations.
-Teachers can add a sixth check box that includes a chat with the teacher so that questions and checks for understanding can be incorporated.

SYNOPSIS: In this lesson, students learn about particle pollution.

SCIENTIST NOTES: This lesson introduces students to gain elementary knowledge about air pollution, its sources, and implications on air quality. It provides critical insights on the impacts it has on low-income communities of Los Angeles. The lesson materials are well-written and cited. Thus, this lesson has passed our science review.

POSITIVES:
-This lesson dives deeper into the concept of air pollution and how to monitor air quality.
-This lesson involves movement and allows kids to have fun while learning about something serious.

ADDITIONAL PREREQUISITES:
-You will need to prepare the appropriate materials for The Cilia Game before class begins.
-The Cilia Game is quite silly. Be prepared for some laughs as the "cilia" try to defend the "lungs"!
-Cilia are tiny hair-like structures in our respiratory system that protect our lungs from foreign matter like particle pollution.
-In this lesson we use the term "particle pollution." This is usually referred to as "particulate pollution" or "particulate matter." For the purposes of this lesson, we have decided to use the simpler "particle pollution."
-"Air pollution" is kind of a catchall term, referring to things like ozone, particulate matter, and even greenhouse gases. This can be tricky for elementary students to sort out. The purpose of this lesson is for students to better understand particulate matter.

DIFFERENTIATION:
-Curious students may want more time to explore the interactive map of air quality.
-Students who complete their journal entry early can make their own air quality monitor.
-Be sensitive to your students' health situation. Some students with asthma or who know someone with asthma may find it difficult to learn more about this topic.

This video discusses ways that communities can prepare for air quality changes that will occur due to rising global temperatures.

SYNOPSIS: In this lesson, students connect air quality with environmental justice.

SCIENTIST NOTES: This lesson introduces the relationship between environment and justice. Students understand if their community is healthy and what to do to create a fair, just, equitable, and sustainable planet for all to thrive. Additional materials are suitable to broaden their understanding on a wide range of topics such as segregation, the connection between climate and justice, racial justice, and social justice. All materials in this lesson are properly cited and are void of scientific contradictions. In this light, this lesson has passed our science credibility process.

POSITIVES:
-This lesson allows students to create their own meaning of environmental justice before viewing the explanatory video.
-The EPA's Environmental Justice Screening and Mapping Tool is amazing. Students will love it.

ADDITIONAL PREREQUISITES:
-The video explaining environmental justice might be tough for 3rd-5th graders to understand. Students should understand the core message in the video, even if they might not understand all the details.

DIFFERENTIATION:
-Some students may want more time to explore the EPA's Environmental Justice Screening and Mapping Tool.
-The reflection journal at the end of the lesson has options for student creativity and imagination.

How much of an impact does air travel have on climate change? What can be done about it? Through a hands-on demonstration and a short literature review, students consider the impacts and future of aviation. With data, students consider why climate communicators and scientists focus on carbon dioxide. This guide is an extension of the TILclimate episode "TIL about planes."

This short, time-lapse video shows the changes in the Columbia Glacier from May 12, 2007 to August 20, 2010. Narration provides general description of the geophysical dynamics and processes.

This video from First Alaskans Institute spotlights the Alaska Native community of St. Paul and its hands-on commitment to care for the land and animals on which it depends.

In this video adapted from Storyknife Productions, Alaska Native pilots share how they use traditional knowledge to read the landscape and predict the weather.

Tribal communities in southeastern Alaska are partnering with federal and state agencies to investigate increasing harmful algal blooms—events that pose human health risks to subsistence harvesters.

In Florida's humid climate, strawberry growers are in a constant battle with two kinds of fruit rot. Using a decision support system, they can save money by spraying fields only when the plant diseases are a threat.

This animation depicts the carbon cycle in a fashion that is suited for younger audiences. The video discusses how carbon enters and exits the environment through both natural and human-driven ways.

In this informational text, elementary school readers learn about the difference between weather and climate and about components of the climate system. The text can be used to practice visualizing and other comprehension strategies. Available in K-2 and 3-5 grade bands and as an illustrated book as well as a text document, the story appears in the online magazine Beyond Weather and the Water Cycle.

Global temperatures continue to be affected by the combustion of fossil fuels and the subsequent release of carbon dioxide. This 3-week unit is designed to give 9th grade physical science or environmental science student an introduction to climate change, how humans are influencing it, and what efforts we can make to help limit or prevent it. Topics necessary for this unit include electricity, circuits, greenhouse gases, alternative energies, embodied energy, payback period, and life cycle assessments. This unit functions as a culminating project incorporating all of the topics listed above and challenges students to conduct research, engineer their own alternative energy solutions and prove their efficiency through calculation. Individually or in pairs students must pick an alternative energy, spend a day or more researching it, a day drawing a blueprint for it and creating a materials list, two or three days building model “power plants” to light 3 LEDs, and two to three days writing summary research papers. The quantitative analysis of their models (included in their research papers) and student’s ability to prove their models environmental superiority over fossil fuels will be weighted heavily.

Is climate change real? Yes, it is! And technologies to reduce Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions are being developed. One type of technology that is imperative in the short run is biofuels; however, biofuels must meet specifications for gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel, or catastrophic damage could occur. This course will examine the chemistry of technologies of bio-based sources for power generation and transportation fuels. We'll consider various biomasses that can be utilized for fuel generation, understand the processes necessary for biomass processing, explore biorefining, and analyze how biofuels can be used in current fuel infrastructure.

This video provides a detailed description of the habitat of the American Pika and how this organism may serve as a climate indicator species because they have a relatively narrow ecological niche and specialized habitat.

We will explore the changing political choices and ethical dilemmas of American scientists from the atomic scientists of World War II to biologists in the present wrestling with the questions raised by cloning and other biotechnologies. As well as asking how we would behave if confronted with the same choices, we will try to understand the choices scientists have made by seeing them in their historical and political contexts. Some of the topics covered include: the original development of nuclear weapons and the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki; the effects of the Cold War on American science; the space shuttle disasters; debates on the use of nuclear power, wind power, and biofuels; abuse of human subjects in psychological and other experiments; deliberations on genetically modified food, the human genome project, human cloning, embryonic stem cell research; and the ethics of archaeological science in light of controversies over museum collections.

This video production is a part of a four-panel report from the National Academies' America's Climate Choices project. The video maps out the realm of our accumulated knowledge regarding climate change and charts a path forward, urging that research on climate change enter a new era focused on the needs of decision makers.

A video that discusses the perspectives and insights necessary to report out about climate change. The video can be used to demonstrate how different perspectives impact different stakeholders and different levels, and that there is a need to have a clear, coordinated national response.

This lab activity is designed for science students in an introductory climatology course. Upon successful completion of the activity, students will have demonstrated an ability to:

Independently navigate and download climate data from online data libraries.
Work with different file types (NetCDF and CSV).
Write appropriate MATLAB code to read and manipulate climate data, and create plots (time series and maps) as instructed.
Extract meaningful information from large 3-dimensional datasets.
Understand and apply fundamental climatology concepts, such as:

Climate statistics (temporal and spatial mean and anomaly; trends; baselines)
Ice-albedo feedback resulting in disproportionate sensitivity to climate change in polar regions

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This is a problem-based learning activity that guides students through a process whereby the class as a whole investigates various stakeholder perspectives on the global climate change controversy. Individual students then reflect on their own perspectives in light of what they have learned.