Attacks on a Protective Canopy

This is a photo essay linked to a New York Times story about climate-related stressors on forests -- including mountain pine beetles, forest fires, forest clearance, and ice storms -- and the importance of protecting forests as an important carbon sink.

Why Fly South? How Climate Change Alters the Phenology of Plants and Animals

This activity introduces students to plotting and analyzing phenology data for date of first lilac bloom and number of days of ice cover of nearby Gull Lake, over a 30-year time span.

Changes Ahoof: Could Climate Change Affect Arctic Caribou?

Students run a simplified computer model to explore how climate conditions can affect caribou, the most abundant grazing animal in the Arctic.

March of the Polar Bears: Global Change, Sea Ice, and Wildlife Migration

In this activity students use NASA satellite data to study changes in temperature and snow-ice coverage in the South Beaufort Sea, Alaska. They will then correlate the data with USGS ground tracking of polar bears and relate their findings to global change, sea ice changes, and polar bear migration and survival.

AK-03 ALASKA: AK-03 Columbia Glacier "Cliff" (Narrated)

A video from the Extreme Ice Survey in which Dr. Tad Pfeffer and photographer Jim Balog discuss the dynamics of the Columbia glacier's retreat in recent years through this time-lapse movie. Key point: glacier size is being reduced not just by glacial melting but due to a shift in glacial dynamics brought on by climate change.

Changing Climate: Changing Habitats

This video looks at the impact of changing climate on animal habitats around the world, showing how different creatures are responding to changing temperatures and precipitation patterns.

The Carbon Cycle interactive

This is an interactive visualization of the Carbon Cycle, through short-term and long-term processes.

Eyewitnesses to Change

In this activity students explore recent changes in the Arctic's climate that have been observed and documented by indigenous Arctic residents. Students watch a video, take notes, and create a concept map. Students also examine and graph historical weather data and indigenous data for an Arctic community. Students explain why natives are critical observers.

Wildfires Out West

This video from ClimateCentral looks at the way climate conditions can affect vegetation in the West, and what influence this has on wildfires. Drought and rainfall can have very different wildfire outcomes, depending on vegetation type, extent, and location.

Stressed Out!?

In this activity, students research various topics about ocean health, e.g. overfishing, habitat destruction, invasive species, climate change, pollution, and ocean acidification. An optional extension activity has them creating an aquatic biosphere in a bottle experiment in which they can manipulate variables.

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