Is Greenland Melting?

Type of Resource: Link

Reviews

No reviews

Be the first to write a review

Description

Data-centric activity where students explore the connections between an observable change in the cryosphere and its potential impact in the hydrosphere and atmosphere. Students analyze the melt extents on the Greenland ice sheet from 1992-2003. Students also learn about how scientists collect the data.

HS-ESS3-5 Analyze geoscience data and the results from global climate models to make an evidence-based forecast of the current rate of global or regional climate change and associated future impacts to Earth systems.

Analyze data using tools, technologies, and/or models (e.g., computational, mathematical) in order to make valid and reliable scientific claims or determine an optimal design solution.

Ask questions to determine relationships, including quantitative relationships, between independent and dependent variables.

Apply scientific reasoning, theory, and/or models to link evidence to the claims to assess the extent to which the reasoning and data support the explanation or conclusion.

Make and defend a claim based on evidence about the natural world or the effectiveness of a design solution that reflects scientific knowledge, and student-generated evidence.

Use simple limit cases to test mathematical expressions, computer programs, algorithms, or simulations of a process or system to see if a model “makes sense” by comparing the outcomes with what is known about the real world.

Gather, read, and evaluate scientific and/or technical information from multiple authoritative sources, assessing the evidence and usefulness of each source.

Communicate scientific and/or technical information or ideas (e.g. about phenomena and/or the process of development and the design and performance of a proposed process or system) in multiple formats (including orally, graphically, textually, and mathematically).

Select appropriate tools to collect, record, analyze, and evaluate data.

The foundation for Earth’s global climate systems is the electromagnetic radiation from the sun, as well as its reflection, absorption, storage, and redistribution among the atmosphere, ocean, and land systems, and this energy’s re-radiation into space.

Current models predict that, although future regional climate changes will be complex and varied, average global temperatures will continue to rise. The outcomes predicted by global climate models strongly depend on the amounts of human-generated greenhouse gases added to the atmosphere each year and by the ways in which these gases are absorbed by the ocean and biosphere.

Empirical evidence is required to differentiate between cause and correlation and make claims about specific causes and effects.

Changes of energy and matter in a system can be described in terms of energy and matter flows into, out of, and within that system.

Feedback (negative or positive) can stabilize or destabilize a system.

The significance of a phenomenon is dependent on the scale, proportion, and quantity at which it occurs.

Empirical evidence is needed to identify patterns.

Using the concept of orders of magnitude allows one to understand how a model at one scale relates to a model at another scale.

Is Greenland Melting?

Reviews

Description

Performance Expectations

Science and Engineering Practices

Disciplinary Core Ideas

Crosscutting Concepts