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What do we mean when we talk about climate change - and there's really two parts to it: Is the climate changing?
The more complicated question is: Are humans causing the climate change?
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Teaching climate change to seventeen and eighteen-year-olds
can be a challenge. So one of the things thats a big advantage for me is I
bring a lot of credibility to the subject. I've done my homework and I
I work really hard to educate myself on the subject. So I try not to
present conclusions, I present them with the best evidence
I know that's out there and I try to let them draw their own conclusions
from the evidence. The activity that we just did at the kettle pond is based
on the work I did at the Toolik Field Station last summer. One of my
responsibilities as a PolarTrek teacher was too
take pretty complex science
that my researchers were working on and adapt it
to lessons for the high school classroom. So,
what we were doing there was an activity that I designed
to make it easy for teachers to try to measure changes
in carbon dioxide levels. So, I took a pretzel barrel,
cut in half and drilled a hole in the top to put the co2 sensor in, and so that
then serves as a chamber
where we can place that on a lake surface, or we can place it on the ground
and see if carbon dioxide in that chamber is increasing over time
and collect data that students can use and hopefully
increase their understanding of how the carbon cycle works. Female Student: Bruce has been
really cool and he
did this thing with us today on the carbon cycle and how -- he's like, this is
what I want
my kids to know before they come to me and so it kinda makes me think okay
I need --
I need to start setting the foundation and what is the base of this
foundation
and I feel like I have that knowledge from Bruce.
One of the things I wanted to know more about what the instruments
when I came here and so it's cool to have those hands on
instruments that I could purchase for my class.
Jenifer: it's hands-on learning ... what this class has done, we've
had so many hands-on experiences and standing in front of
the evidence of what is happening in this
dynamic landscape that were we're living in.
I think that's the most important part, is
to experience it for yourself.
Bruce: The teachers in this course are much more diverse than I'd expected. I
expected environmental science teachers and we have art teachers, we have
third-grade teachers, we have all kinds teachers
who have very different ideas about how to incorporate climate change into their
curriculum, so I've been listening a lot to them
and trying to understand what they're looking for here
and then try to present them with some science that they can then integrate
into the lessons that they teach their students.
They can be part of the solution -- they're gonna have to be part of the solution
if the problem is going to get solved. So, I think it's really important for people
to have a good understanding
of the science behind the problem before we can talk about solutions.
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