The Collaborative Environmental Series

Sponsored by

The Salem State Collaborative

Session 2: Teaching Climate Change Across the Curriculum

Presenter: Rita Chang, Co-Founder of Classroom Encounters and Climate Change Educator

Location: Lynnfield High School, 275 Essex Street, Lynnfield MA 01940

Dates: 2 December 2009

Time: 4:00-6:00

PDP’s: 2 PDP’s per workshop

Fee: FREE to Members and Non-Members (register below)

Description: Climate change is one of the most pervasive science topics of the day. The concepts underlying climate change science easily lend themselves to lessons and inquiry-based activities in courses in biology, chemistry, physics, environmental science, and others. This workshop will provide lessons and resources that can be used in multiple science classes in grades 7-12 to teach climate change while meeting the Massachusetts Frameworks for Science.

Rita Chang is the former Executive Director of Harvard University’s Center for Health and the Global Environment and is the co-founder of Classroom Encounters. Classroom Encounters produces world-class science and teacher-friendly media covering the changing planet. Rita, who also teaches earth science at Wellesley High School, and her film and media-making partner, have worked to bring leading climate and global change scientists into the classroom to share their knowledge and model inquiry. Using scientists and students, Classroom Encounters has produced educational DVDs for classroom use that explain and bring alive the concepts of climate change, how the sciences come together in global change research, and how climate science is done in the real world.

If you have been wondering how you can incorporate the concepts of climate change and global warming into your science class, this is the workshop for you. Designed for science teachers in grades 7-12, this series will provide teachers with standards-based lessons and activities that can be used to teach climate change. In one lesson, students use the Keeling and Vostok ice core data in a jigsaw graphing lesson to show how CO₂ and temperature have changed over the past few hundred thousand years. A second lesson involves a hands-on activity in which students study the effect of albedo (reflectivity) on polar ice. Classroom Encounters and STEM Polar Connection lessons and materials will be showcased for teachers, along with ideas for incorporating these resources into your classroom.

Registration Information:

Please register at our website www.salemcollaborative.org, or email the following information to Jim

Kearns at registration@salemcollaborative.org. If you have registration questions, please either

email (preferred) or call Jim at 781-771-4860.