HANDS ON WITH EARTH’S THERMOSTAT, A DATA-RICH INTRODUCTION TO THE CLIMATE SYSTEM FOR INTRODUCTORY COLLEGE SCIENCE COURSES (Invited Presentation)

Despite the scientific consensus regarding climate change, the underlying processes governing Earth’s climate remain poorly understood by the public at large. We have developed a module, entitled Earth’s Thermostat, through the NSF-funded InTeGrate project that seeks to bridge this gap in knowledge by helping students understand Earth’s climate system, its sensitivity to changes in its drivers, and how it interacts with Earth’s other systems.

The module consists of 6 class-length units that can be taught over a 2-week period as a stand-alone module, sprinkled throughout a course or used individually to address a specific topic. Each of these units, in turn, is centered on 1-2 activities where students work with real geoscience data, interpret and make graphs and maps, and develop conceptual models. In this presentation you’ll get a chance to try out a few of these activities through a series of micro-demonstrations. The module activities include: a concept sketch of Earth’s climate system used for student self-assessment, small-group graph-based explorations of the global temperature and Mauna Loa CO₂ records, a slide-based think-pair-share exploration of atmospheric effects on the energy balance, a carbon-footprint take-home exercise, an interactive lecture introducing climate feedbacks and systems diagrams, a map-based jigsaw introducing spatial variability in the climate system, and a capstone activity developing a conceptual model of the climatic and societal effects of a catastrophic volcanic eruption occurring in modern times.

Earth’s Thermostat is designed for introductory science courses that address Earth's climate system and/or climate change. The authors have piloted the module in an introductory geoscience course at a 4-year liberal arts college, an introductory physical geography course at a 4-year state university, and an introductory meteorology course at a 2-year community college. Students who participated in these courses showed improvement in their ability to explain elements of the climate system and to create conceptual models of potential climate change drivers through embedded summative assessments, significant gains in overall geoscience literacy (p<0.001), and increased motivation to create a sustainable society and/or pursue careers with a focus on sustainability.