But I got an email from the National Council for Science and Environment, of which I am a member, about their new interdisciplinary climate change curriculum materials featuring Unity College's very own Dr. Kevin Spigel, paleoclimatologist.
Here's the email with links to the materials, which we'll use in Global Change forthwith:
NASA/NCSE Interdisciplinary
Climate Change Education (NICCE)
“Creation and Dissemination of an Interdisciplinary Undergraduate General Education Course on Climate Change”
Dear Colleague,
We invite you and your faculty to use the educational modules that we have developed through the NASA/NCSE Interdisciplinary Climate Change Education (NICCE) project. The modules are self-contained educational units that are aimed at general undergraduate education but are also valuable for other introductory courses. They emphasize the use of NASA data and images in interactive learning. We have also developed an assessment tool to accompany the modules.
We invite you to participate in a webinar to provide an overview of the modules, assessment tools and other resources. Please join us Friday, September 10 from 1-2:30 p.m. EDT. A web link and password will be provided when you register with Alan Turner at ATurner@ncseonline.org. There will be follow-up webinars to provide additional information about selected modules. You are encouraged to invite any of your colleagues who might be interested in using this material to also sign up for the webinar.
The following Modules are available (additional descriptions follow):
· NASA Time Machine
· Seasonality; Introduction to Remote Sensing Metrics; Advanced Topics in Remote Sensing
· Climate Change Impacts on Colorado River Water Supply
· Using Satellite and Historical Data to Characterize and Attribute Climate Change
· International Issues and the Human Response to Climate Change
· Premium Wine Grape Growing and Climate Change
The modules have been developed under the auspices of NCSE’s Council of Environmental Deans and Directors (CEDD) and will be incorporated into the NCSE/CEDD Climate Adaptation and Mitigation E-Learning (CAMEL) project that is funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF).
The basic module materials are available on the Encyclopedia of Earth: http://www.eoearth.org/article/NCSE-NASA_Interdisciplinary_Climate_Change_Education
More in-depth materials are available on the instructors’ portal which is found at:
http://www.trunity.net/nnicce/ The portal will be explored during the webinar. You will be shown how to become a member of the portal community in order to share your educational experiences with others who are using the modules in the courses. This portal will be limited to instructors only so that you will be able to confer with colleagues without student access. There is a parallel portal for open student access which will also be shown.
Additional information about NCSE’s climate education projects can be found at www.ncseonline.org/climate
Descriptions of the modules:
· NASA Time Machine – In this module students explore the NASA Time Machine program and report on whether it helps their understanding of the topic, including how NASA might improve the tool to make it clearer. This was assigned to 26 students in an undergraduate introduction to climate change course, and 11 current Middle School teachers in a graduate climate change fundamentals course. Developers were David Hassenzahl and Tricia Mynster, University of Nevada-Las Vegas.
· Seasonality; Introduction to Remote Sensing Metrics; Advanced Topics in Remote Sensing – These are three small modules that progressively introduce students to working with satellite imagery and remote sensing data a little bit at a time. The first module introduces students to earth-sun relationships and seasonality and hints at drivers of climate. The second module presents students with the remote sensing metrics of RGB (Red, Green, Blue) or true color images and CIR (Color Infrared), both of which are used to assess the “health” of vegetation on the landscape. This module also introduces students to NDVI (Normalized Difference Vegetation Index). The Advanced Topics unit includes NBR (Normalized Burn Ratio) images which can be used to assess drought and/or water stress. Its purpose is intended to get students to think about connections to topography and land use/development/water use, and connections with the other metrics. Students have the opportunity to evaluate their skills by making qualitative estimates of climate using their image interpretations and then “checking” their estimates against actual climate data. The students are also asked to consider implications for future climate change and impacts on humans and water resources. These units are by Kevin Spigel, Unity College, Maine. These modules was used at Unity last year.
· Climate Change Impacts on Colorado River Water Supply – This unit considers the relationship between snowpack on the Rocky Mountains and water resources in the Colorado River watershed. It is a four-part assignment that explores the relationship between snowpack and available water in the basin, the adaptive measures that agriculture, energy, urban users may need to take (including inter-state and international negotiations), and the impacts of both the reduction in water and the adaptive activities on non-human uses. This was used in a one-month unit in April 2010. David Hassenzahl and Tricia Mynster, University of Nevada-Las Vegas
· “Using Satellite and Historical Data to Characterize and Attribute Climate Change."
o Part One uses CRU/GISS ocean and world temperature over the last century, sunspot data, orbital data, PDO/ENSO/NAO/ Climate forcing data. Supplements to the module include a draft of the chapter from Dr. David Kitchen’s forthcoming book and the spreadsheets students will use.
o Part Two uses historical data from Antarctica and Greenland and focuses on the end of the last glaciation and rapid climate change. The format is the same, working from real data that students have to graph, interpret and analyze, but also includes presentation of a couple of paleogeographical maps. The purpose is to get students to use their knowledge of atmospheric and oceanic circulation to make predictions about global climate in the past and future.
o They were used in a class of 8 students including two of traditional age, one master level and the others adults by David Kitchen, University of Richmond.
· International Issues and the Human Response to Climate Change – This module is based on the final 2 chapters of Climate Change: Convergence of the Disciplines by Co-I Arnold Bloom. This module was used to teach a class of 6 students in Environmental Policy by Marcia Owens, Florida A&M University. An outline is posted on the portal with an EoE article to follow.
· Premium Wine Grape Growing and Climate Change – Premium wine production is highly dependent on climate. Students will examine decadal trends in data from NASA satellites and ground stations to determine if shifts in the locations for premium wine production have occurred in northern California or other places in the United States. It was created by Arnold Bloom, U. California-Davis.
For additional information, please contact NCSE Senior Fellow Dr. Andy Jorgensen at andy.jorgensen@utoledo.edu.
We are looking forward to working with you!
David E. Blockstein, PhD.
Executive Secretary,
Council of Environmental Deans and Directors
Senior Scientist
National Council for Science and the Environment
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