HES Activity 3.2 Differentiation

Differentiation
  • Allow students to work in pairs or groups to complete the PhET simulation.
  • Go through the PhET simulation as a whole class, completing the worksheet together.
  • Provide sentence stems for students to complete the questions on the worksheet.
Modifications

Ask students to share with the class their ideas about why increasing levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is related to additional Earth systems other than temperature (e.g., sea level rise, arctic sea ice melt).

Extending the Learning

Encourage students to watch for references to climate change or global warming in the newspapers, magazines, and other media. Ask them to be “critical consumers,” and to consider the sources of the information. Does the author/speaker provide evidence to support the claim? What evidence does the author/speaker provide?

Advanced students may find it interesting to research differences on the Earth in the past when carbon dioxide levels and temperature were at their highest. What animals and plants lived on the Earth then? What was the climate like?

Some students may have questions about how infrared radiation interacts with greenhouse gas molecules to produce heat. Although we do not go into this amount of detail in this unit, students may find these resources helpful: