Energy Choices and Climate Change

Type of Resource: Link

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This interactive provides two scenarios for students to look at issues related to energy and climate change: from the perspective of either a family, or a monarch.

Though the magnitudes of human impacts are greater than they have ever been, so too are human abilities to model, predict, and manage current and future impacts.

Human activities, such as the release of greenhouse gases from burning fossil fuels, are major factors in the current rise in Earth’s mean surface temperature (global warming). Reducing the level of climate change and reducing human vulnerability to whatever climate changes do occur depend on the understanding of climate science, engineering capabilities, and other kinds of knowledge, such as understanding of human behavior and on applying that knowledge wisely in decisions and activities.

When investigating or describing a system, the boundaries and initial conditions of the system need to be defined and their inputs and outputs analyzed and described using models.

Models (e.g., physical, mathematical, computer models) can be used to simulate systems and interactions—including energy, matter, and information flows—within and between systems at different scales.

Models can be used to represent systems and their interactions—such as inputs, processes and outputs—and energy and matter flows within systems.

Models can be used to predict the behavior of a system, but these predictions have limited precision and reliability due to the assumptions and approximations inherent in models.

Models are limited in that they only represent certain aspects of the system under study.

Systems can be designed to do specific tasks.

Energy Choices and Climate Change

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Disciplinary Core Ideas

Crosscutting Concepts