The purpose of this activity is for students to engage themselves in a self-paced study on the most important environmental topic of this century, Global Warming and Climate Change. There are signs that the climate is changing and the impacts of this change will be world wide and possibly catastrophic. No citizen can afford to be ignorant on this topic .

Students should follow the links available on the here on useful links / global warming web page to complete this assignment. Other links of the student's own choice may be used in addition to these links but the addresses should be included in student's reports in order to ensure validity of the information gathered on these sites. Students may also consult the classroom resource, Earth Explorer, for more information and activities. Library reference books will also be made available for students who would like to use them during class time. Included in this lesson will be tutorial for using online databases such as EBSCO and SIRS.

This activity can be completed in class and at home. There are many excellent resources on this topic available in print from the PCDS and your local library as well. So read up and become an informed and educated global citizen.

All papers must be typed or neatly handwritten in blue or black ink.

All papers must be of your own work, you may not simply copy and paste text from any source. If you would like to include graphics copied from the web, be sure to include the address of the site that y0u took.

In addition to this background paper you may complete one or more of the activities listed below:

• on Polar Meteorology from this web site from the US navy
• the hot topics game called Global Warming in the program "Earth explorer" - this program is on a CD that is in the computer
  (to launch the program, find it in the application menu under science and double click it, do NOT double click on the CD icon itself)
• complete one of the activities for "GW for kids" on the EPA site

To gather information for your paper

Begin at the EPA site on Global warming here

• what is the problem?
• what do we know?
• what are the greenhouse gases?
  • name them and describe how they trap solar radiation.
• how much of this gas does the United States emit?
• describe 5 impacts that the global warming will have on the planet.
• what can you do - personally - to slow down emission of greenhouse gases?
  • list 5 actions that you can take.

View the EPA kids global warming site here
to learn how global warming can be detected.

• describe 3 or more clues that we have that the climate has changed.

Look at the climate hot map here
(It is a clickable map.)

• Click on the continents to discover the early warning signs and impacts of global warming. Choose two examplesfrom each continent.
• list them in a table.

View the UNEP Vital climate change graphics page

• click on the links and examine the graphics carefully
  read the text below each picture.
• this page will give you more details to use in your answers to the questions above.

View the web pages showing interactive maps on the Kyoto protocol here

• click on the maps and discover how much greenhouse gas each country emits. List each country and what percent reduction it would need to make to comply with the Kyoto protocol. (make a table)
• learn more here about the Kyoto protocol

Finish this project by reading the NOVA web page to accompany the video "Warnings from the Ice"

• read the section on the stories in the ice cores,
• how do ice cores record history?
• describe the timeline - click on the picture at the top of the "stories" page.
• view the graphics depicting the ocean level change if the ice caps were to melt. It is called "water world"
• describe what you see.

After you have read the links listed here and answered the required questions you may do one of the extra activities or look at other links on Polar science here... or on Mrs Youngman's research here.