Digging Deep with Climate Proxies: An Exploration into Climate, Inquiry Science

and Scientific Literacy

2015 NSTA National Conference, Chicago IL

Mark Goldner 7th/8th Grade Science Teacher Heath School, Brookline, MA

Digging Deep with Climate Proxies: An Exploration into Climate, Inquiry Science

and Scientific Literacy

�  Warm-up: Who’s your Audience?

�  Project outline: �  Sediment Coring and Analysis

�  Interacting with Climate Scientists

�  Creating Podcasts

�  Literacy Connections

�  Logistics & How you might adapt this to your classroom setting

Thanks to… �  PolarTREC - Janet Warburton and Sarah Bartholow

�  Dr. Julie Brigham-Grette, UMASS Amherst

�  Dr. Ross Powell, Northern Illinois University

�  Tim Martin, Greensboro Day School, 2009 PolarTREC

�  Monica Brady-Myerov, Listen Current

�  Janet MacNeil, Brookline MA K-8 Science Coordinator

�  National Science Foundation

Warm up: Who’s Your Audience?

�  Think of a favorite project or activity that you have your students do.

�  Who is/are the audience(s) for this project?

�  How do you think having an identified and authentic audience affects student performance on a project?

Importance of Authentic Audience

�  Listen to the Podcast.

�  Who are the potential audience(s) for this piece?

Project Goals �  Content Goals:

�  Explain what the Greenhouse Effect is and how that explains our current climate change.

�  Use data to make claims about short-and long-term trends in climate.

�  Describe examples of how proxy data is used to understand past climate and model future climate trends.

�  Nature of Science Goals: �  Use hands-on experiences to gather data and make claims

based on evidence �  Learn the stories of research experiences from real

Scientists �  Improve Scientific Literacy through reading, writing,

listening and speaking

Climate Change: How do we know? �  Proxy = indirect measurements that stand in for direct

measurements

�  Proxies are often JUST as reliable as a direct measurement would be

Examples of Climate Proxies

�  Sediment: �  Isotopic signatures in organic matter

�  Pollen �  Diatoms

�  Ice Cores

�  Tree Rings

�  Corals

�  Historical Records

Inquiry Science �  Hands-on

�  Students doing Real Science and asking authentic scientific questions

�  Feels important

Project Part 1: Overview of Climate Change

�  Introduction to the current climate crisis

�  Overview of the greenhouse effect model

�  Looking at data – CO2 and temperature data from the past 3 million years or so.

http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/ Do a google search for NOAA pumphandle

Project Part 2: Sediment Coring and Analysis

�  Sediment collected from local pond and river.

�  Core descriptions, including color and texture analysis.

�  Connect with known events (construction, flooding, etc.)

�  Make Claims based on Evidence

Project Part 3: Extending our understanding of proxy data

�  RadioLab Story about Corals and Day Length:

http://www.radiolab.org/story/times-they-are-changin/

Project Part 3: Extending our understanding of proxy data

�  Lake McCarrons Sediment Study: Observing impacts of human development over 200 years

Foam

use

d

to s

oak

up

w

ater

at

top

of c

ore

year

200

0

scale in centimetersTOP BOTTOM

Project Part 3: Extending our understanding of proxy data

�  Lake McCarrons Sediment Study: Observing impacts of human development over 200 years

Foam

use

d

to s

oak

up

w

ater

at

top

of c

ore

year

200

0

scale in centimetersTOP BOTTOM

Project Part 3: Extending our understanding of proxy data

�  Climate Change in the Sahara: Observing 9000 years of changing climate.

�  Lake El’gygytgyn Sediment Study: Observing climate changes from 400,000 years ago

Project Part 3: Extending our understanding of proxy data

Project Part 4: Learning about a researcher who uses climate proxies

�  Students Read and discuss (Close Reading and Discussion)

�  Summarize and share (Close Reading and Summarizing)

Project Part 4: Learning about a researcher who uses climate proxies

�  Blog Discussion following summaries

Project Part 4: Learning about a researcher who uses climate proxies

�  Generate Questions: Focus on Using climate proxies to understand climate in past/present/future

Project Part 5: Creating the Podcast

�  Listen to researcher recordings and discuss (Close listening and discussion)

�  Summarize (Close listening and summarizing)

Project Part 5: Creating the Podcast

�  Planning and Writing a Script

�  Recording and mixing audio (using QuickTime and GarageBand)

Project Part 6: Share with wider audience

�  Main audience is other middle school students.

�  I published the podcasts using BuzzSprout and embedded them into a wordpress site: climateproxy.sciencegold.com

Literacy Connections �  Reading:

�  Reading articles about researchers �  Reading graphs and data

�  Writing �  Recording Observations �  Summarizing Reading �  Writing Blog posts and comments �  Script writing

�  Listening �  Listening to Researcher recordings �  Listening/commenting about peers’ recordings

�  Speaking �  Small Group Discussions �  Recording Voices in Podcast

All student podcasts are at:

climateproxy.sciencegold.com