The National Climate Assessment assesses the science of climate change and its impacts across the United States, now and throughout this century. It documents climate change related impacts and responses for various sectors and regions, with the goal of better informing public and private decision-making at all levels.

This video uses Bangladesh as a case study by describing climate change adaptation strategies being implemented in Bangladeshi communities as well as in other countries.

SYNOPSIS: In this lesson, students learn the impacts of climate change on birds, explore the effectiveness of public art on climate change awareness, and synthesize informational texts into a persuasive or argumentative essay.

SCIENTIST NOTES: Bird species are suffering and facing extinction as a result of rising temperatures. Several species are slowly losing their range and changing shape and size. This lesson also establishes the possibility that a gradual rise in temperature could affect human survival, but it also gives students the opportunity to brainstorm and use their artistic talents to convey conservation strategies that would safeguard local wildlife and ecologically delicate species. This lesson is suggested for use in the classroom since the video, pictures, and materials are from reliable sources.

POSITIVES:
-This lesson can be used to teach students close reading or note-taking strategies.
-This lesson can be used to focus on elements of persuasive or argumentative writing techniques.
-This lesson can be easily adapted for writing workshops and the peer editing process in a multi-day or mini-unit.
-This lesson can be done in the Spring or Fall when students can also observe local birds outside, or during state testing days as an independent or partner project.
-This lesson can be used as a stand-alone lesson or as a lesson in a unit on non-fiction, birds, geography, art, or research.
-Students are given voice and choice and can work independently or in pairs.
-Students explore various media and guide their own learning with options for breadth and depth.
-Students learn about local bird species in their neighborhood and region.
-Students have two different options to create their own artistic responses.

ADDITIONAL PREREQUISITES:
-Teachers should be aware that the Audubon organization is named after John James Audubon and references his “complicated history” as an unrepentant slave owner and strong advocate for slavery. Students will explore this in the lesson, but teachers may want to preview the articles prior to the lesson.
-Students should have some basic understanding of citing sources and referencing multiple resources in writing.
-Students should have a basic understanding of the elements of persuasive or argumentative writing.
-Students should have access to devices with a strong internet connection.

DIFFERENTIATION:
-Teachers can extend the research and writing portions of the lesson, using them to teach specific elements in persuasive or argumentative writing.
-Teachers can provide paragraph or essay structures, graphic organizers, brainstorming, or outline templates for students to use.
-Teachers can read one article in the Inspire section with the class as an anchor text or to model reading and note-taking strategies.
-English teachers can choose to make the artistic element a separate class period, an extension, or extra credit activity.
-Teachers can assign other articles from the Audubon website for extension activities.
-Social studies, civics, and economics classes can extend this topic to discuss social justice, socioeconomic status, and cultural impacts. Students can research and discuss how other activists’ “complicated” backgrounds have impacted their messaging.
-Music classes can listen to bird songs of birds from the Audubon website and compare the musicality and tonality of different bird songs in the same region.

The Blue Lake Rancheria Tribe—a federally recognized Native American tribe in California—was one of 16 communities selected as a 2015–2016 Climate Action Champion by the Obama Administration for exceptional work in response to climate change.

The Tribe began its strategic climate action planning in 2008 and has become a regional leader in greenhouse gas reductions and community resiliency measures. To date, the Tribe has reduced energy consumption from 2008 levels by 35 percent and has committed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions 40 percent by 2018, utilizing a range of approaches—including aggressive energy efficiency upgrades, developing on-site renewable energy (biomass, solar, fuel cells, grid battery storage), and switching to green fuels (electricity and biodiesel).

Step 1. Students are asked to keep track of their energy use from a variety of sources (heating/cooling, electricity, transportation, secondary emissions, etc) during the 9 days of Thanksgiving break, when many of them are likely to travel. They use the total for the 9 days that they calculated using an online calculator to estimate their yearly footprint and compare it to US and world averages. For most of them, the amount of carbon emitted during those 9 days is quite large because of airplane travel or long-distance driving. However, using a week of break when many students will travel allows them to become aware of the significance of transportation in carbon emissions. We provided a table with electricity and heating/cooling bills for various residence halls for students who stay on campus during the break.

Step 2. Students complete an online survey where they are asked to enter the values that they have obtained for the various components of the calculator, perform some simple calculations and compare their annual footprint to the U.S. average. We used SurveyGizmo for the survey because it allows to download the data in a spreadsheet format and has some limited plotting features. The free version allows a maximum of 250 submissions, the Basic version ($19 per month, can be canceled at any time) has unlimited submissions.
Step 3. Students write an essay through BlackBoard/WebCT (Assignment). A few guiding questions are provided for this essay where students reflect on the results of their impact on the global carbon budget, what they found surprising, and if they plan to make any changes to their lifestyle to limit their impact. No length limit is set for the essay.

The guidelines and components of this assignment are available on a wiki page. The three steps can be implemented in BlackBoard/WebCT as a Lesson Plan with links to the online calculator (step 1), to the survey (step 2), and to the Assignment/essay (step 3).

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This 3-activity sequence addresses the question: "To what extent should coastal communities build or rebuild?" The activity uses social science and geoscience data to prepare an evidence-based response to the question, in targeted US coastal communities.

This PBS video focuses on sea level rise in Norfolk, Virginia and how the residents are managing the logistical, financial and political implications. Science journalists who have been studying Norfolk's rising sea level problems are interviewed, as well as local residents who are being impacted.

Climate change poses a threat to the traditional livelihoods and the sustainably managed forestlands of the Menominee Nation. However, climate change also presents an opportunity—a chance to apply indigenous knowledge to adapt and sustain native communities, and for the Menominee Nation to share its understandings with others seeking to address this global issue. 

A set of eight photographs compiled into a series of slides explain how urban areas are facing challenges in keeping both their infrastructure and their residents cool as global temperatures rise. Chicago is tackling that problem with a green design makeover. This report is part of PBS's Coping with Climate Change series and could challenge students to consider engineering designs to help their own cities be greener.

SYNOPSIS: In this lesson, students learn about deforestation and climate change and respond by writing an ode or an elegy.

SCIENTIST NOTES: This lesson empowers students to understand what deforestation entails and how they can write poems to express their feelings of grief, respect, emotion, and valor in combating deforestation in their community. All materials used in the lesson have been verified and are suitable for teaching. In this light, this lesson is credible and recommended for the classroom.

POSITIVES:
-This lesson can be used as a standalone or as a lesson in a poetry unit.
-Students are given voice and choice.
-Students create their own poetic response to a real-world challenge.

ADDITIONAL PREREQUISITES:
-Students should have some basic understanding of poetry.
-Students should have a basic understanding of deforestation and its connection to climate change.

DIFFERENTIATION:
-This lesson is easily adaptable to Advanced Placement or honors level classes by including other literary and language elements in the poems such as juxtaposition, oxymoron, consonance, assonance, enjambment, alliteration, and personification.
-Students can write each stanza in a different meter or rhyme. Examples include iambic pentameter or ABBA rhyme scheme.
-Teachers can split the lesson in two and focus on an ode in the first lesson and an elegy in the second.
-Students can write both an ode and an elegy and compare the differences in writing, tone, and overall effect.
-Social studies, civics, and economics classes can extend this topic to social justice, socioeconomic class, and cultural impacts of deforestation within each specific region.
-Student poems can be shared outside of the classroom in the school newspaper or a community newsletter, on a class or teacher website, on school display boards, or in extracurricular poetry or environmental clubs.

In this unit, students will analyze how climate change affects migration around the world and the policies that could be effective in addressing the issue. To start, students will investigate what motivates people to move in general. Then students will read “The Great Climate Migration” by Abrahm Lustgarten and Meridith Kohut, where they will be introduced to how climate change may affect migration in the future. Students will then investigate how climate change is impacting migration by reading and presenting about specific scenarios around the globe. Finally, students will begin to research how policy can address climate migration to avoid disastrous outcomes in the future.

SYNOPSIS: In this lesson, students practice civic engagement by researching and writing a proposal for climate resiliency and scarce water allocation in the Deschutes River Watershed and presenting it in a mock Town Hall meeting.

SCIENTIST NOTES: The lesson allows students to propose ways to solve water scarcity in their local communities and engage with key stakeholders and policymakers to design policies that will enable local communities in Oregon to manage their water resources while building their resilience to climate change. The lesson and all the accompanying materials were reviewed and are suitable for teaching.

POSITIVES:
-Students engage in a mock Town Hall and learn how to build community while voicing community concerns.
-Students practice listening skills and engage in discourse over an important issue.
-Students learn to collaborate with different stakeholders and diverse voices, working together to find a solution that best fits a community.
-Students practice using local research to support their ideas.
-Students learn to write and present a proposal.
-The lesson can be spread out over two to four days, with a full day for research, a full day for the Town Hall, a day for voting or decision-making, and a day for letter writing and sharing in the class.

ADDITIONAL PREREQUISITES:
-Students should have an understanding of media literacy and best research practices.
-Students should have a basic understanding of rhetorical structure and devices for persuasion in oral delivery techniques.
-Teachers should review the general overview and agenda in the Town Hall Guide and make adjustments as needed.
-You will need to make a copy of the Student Slideshow for each group of students and grant them editing rights before the lesson. Students will be writing in the Student Slideshow.

DIFFERENTIATION:
-Students with little experience in persuasive speaking could use some instruction on rhetorical methods and devices using these resources:
-41 Rhetorical Devices That Will Make Your Words Memorable
-How to Use Rhetoric to Get What You Want
-PBS Literary Elements & Techniques: Imagery and Figurative Language.
-Students could develop their research into a Community Action Project proposing policy to actual stakeholders.
-Students could connect with local stream restoration projects or organizations as a hands-on learning experience.
-Students could lead a school community education campaign to spread awareness of water-saving techniques.

The En-ROADS guided assignment challenges participants to use the free online En-ROADS simulator (https://en-roads.climateinteractive.org/) to create a scenario that successfully addresses climate change while considering implications across the economy, environment, and society. The En-ROADS assignment is used in classrooms, ranging from middle school to graduate level students, and comes in short and long forms. It can also be adapted as an exercise for non-academic settings. Often, the assignment is given following an En-ROADS workshop or Climate Action Simulation role-playing simulation game (https://www.climateinteractive.org/en-roads/).

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.

TED Studies, created in collaboration with Wiley, are curated video collections — supplemented by rich educational materials — for students, educators and self-guided learners. In Climate Change, speakers give talks that boldly illuminate the nature and scale of current-day climate science, policy and ethics. They explore the economics and psychology of individual and collective action — or inaction — on climate change in order to assess the costs of our choices and opportunities for change. Relevant areas of interest, study and coursework include: ecology, atmospheric science, oceanography, glaciology, energy development, environmental policy, science in the media, political science, ethics, sociology, behavioral psychology and cultural studies.

This is the first of three short videos showcasing the dramatic changes in Alaska's marine ecosystems. This introduction to the impacts of climate change in Alaska includes interviews with Alaska Natives, commentary by scientists, and footage from Alaska's Arctic.

In this role-play activity, students take the roles of various important players in the climate change policy negotiation including politicians, scientists, environmentalists, and industry representatives. Working in these roles, students must take a position, debate with others, and then vote on legislation designed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the United States. Can be used in a variety of courses including writing and rhetoric, and social sciences.

SYNOPSIS: This lesson plan connects intergenerational justice with the federal budget.

SCIENTIST NOTES: This lesson asks students to analyze how the U.S. federal government splits its budget amongst all of the federal agencies. The website used to track the spending is routinely updated. This lesson has passed the scientist quality assessment.

POSITIVES:
-This is a powerful lesson connecting past, present, and future.
-Students can have agency as to which group they'd like to represent: the present or the future.

ADDITIONAL PREREQUISITES:
-The top 40 of 102 agencies by spending are included in the spreadsheet. The total (estimated) spending by all 40 of these agencies is $2,960,050,000,000.
-The numbers presented at usaspending.gov are pretty messy. The attached spreadsheet rounds to cleaner numbers.
-The numbers in red are rounded to the nearest billion.
-The numbers in orange are rounded to the nearest hundred million.
-The numbers in blue are rounded to the nearest fifty million.
-Students may be missing some background knowledge. Be prepared to answer questions and/or do some research along with them.
-For example, some students might not know the function of the Department of the Interior.
-Feel free to use this site to look up the function of the major federal agencies. These are one-sentence explanations.
-Feel free to also use this site from the White House where the major agencies (e.g., Agriculture, Defense) are outlined in one large paragraph.
-Note that one “agency” is simply called “unreported data.” That data is not made public. Students can simply leave that $8 billion alone.

DIFFERENTIATION:
-Students will most likely not finish. This is not really a “finishable” activity. The main goal of this activity is for students to figure out the best way to allocate money to the major federal agencies.
-It is not really worth it to discuss the really small expenditures like the Administrative Conference of the U.S.
-Students can wear armbands or robes to show that they are representing the future. Some physical representation of their role is a very powerful reminder of who they represent.

The Lifestyle Project is a way for students to learn about environmental alternatives by modifying their own lifestyles. It is a three-week exercise for students to reduce their impact on the environment by changing the way in which they live from day to day. The project has fairly rigid parameters, allowing students to achieve a gradual but definitive change in their everyday habits. Students choose three categories from a list of six: heat, garbage, electricity and water, driving, eating, and activism. For each category the rules are clearly defined, such as turning down the heat three degrees or eliminating the use of the car. Each week the project becomes more rigorous, because students will have to meet the requirements more frequently. They write about their experiences in journals, which are incredibly insightful, illustrating just how profoundly the project affects them.

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SYNOPSIS: In this lesson, students analyze videos about students challenging the government to protect natural resources, research why natural resources are a source of conflict, and create a video summarizing their findings.

SCIENTIST NOTES: This lesson presents the public trust doctrine through two video resources and tasks students to produce their own videos that investigate how natural resources are a source of conflict. All of the materials are well-sourced, though the videos are a little out of date. The lesson also includes a list of credible sources to get students with their investigation. This lesson is recommended for teaching.

POSITIVES:
-Students use their unique voices and perspectives to communicate a complex topic.
-Students use their creativity and collaborative skills to create a video explaining their summary of the lesson.

ADDITIONAL PREREQUISITES:
-The resources from Project Look Sharp require a free login to download the materials.
-Laptops or other recording devices required.
-One-to-one technology is recommended.
-Students must have working knowledge of credible sources.

DIFFERENTIATION:
-The length of the student videos can be lengthened or shortened depending on student ability.
-Students can be placed in mixed ability groupings.
-The number of required citations can be increased or decreased depending on student ability.
-Optional Extension: Videos may be sent to local, state, or federal government to increase the likelihood of change being enacted.