TEACHING ABOUT CARBON, CLIMATE, AND ENERGY RESOURCES

Carbon, Climate, and Energy Resources is a two- to three-week educational module, designed to engage students in critical thinking, and focused on two of the grand challenges facing society: climate change and energy resources. The module consists of six self-contained units, suitable for use in introductory undergraduate geoscience or environmental science courses. Students examine (1) common climate misconceptions and logical fallacies, (2) the carbon cycle and what happens when it is perturbed, (3) the geologic record of past climate (focusing on Vostok ice cores and foraminiferid coiling direction data), (4) processes that form coal, oil and natural gas deposits, (5) short- and long-term changes in atmospheric carbon dioxide levels and their relation to changing temperatures and ocean acidification, and (6) a variety of proposals designed to address the problems of carbon consumption and/or global climate change. These six units may be used as stand-alone activities, or in any sequence. The materials are designed to develop student ability to address interdisciplinary problems, use authentic geoscience data to learn concepts, improve student understanding of the nature and methods of geoscience, and incorporate systems thinking. Carbon, Climate, and Energy Resources is a collaborative project developed under the auspices of Interdisciplinary Teaching about Earth for a Sustainable Future (InTeGrate) http://serc.carleton.edu/integrate/index.html.