Teaching Climate

Emotions wheels have been a visual tool used by psychologists for decades to help people better understand and interpret their own feelings. The goal of this lesson is that looking at this wheel will help students and teachers identify emotions about the climate and learn to work with them.

In this lesson, students will play, explore, appreciate, and practice perspective-taking in nature. All of these actions help positively connect youth to nature, and instill an ethic of care for the environment.

This lesson set serves as an introduction to the topic of environmental justice via a tag game, flash card activity and discussion, and an art lesson for students to create their own environmental justice heroes. It includes thorough background materials and activities to think about before leading the lesson, including cultural adaptation notes and social and emotional support suggestions.

This activity tells a story through the eyes of a salmon, as told by Indigenous tribes of the Northwest. It celebrates traditional knowledge and how humans can think about the natural world through the view point of salmon.

This interactive visualization allows users to scroll on their device to view what types of characteristics and objects might be found at different points in the atmosphere. Using an indicator of miles (or kilometers) above sea level, the visualization shows what satellites might be present, or what scientific phenomenon (thermosphere, Kñrmñn Line, meteors, etc.) might be happening at different levels.

This short video introduces the concept of the urban heat island effect.

In this activity students use stacking cubes to graph precipitation data.

This is a simple but effective scientific experiment to study the impacts of temperature and salinity on water density.

This is a STEM activity to learn how different colors absorb light better than others. Vocabulary and investigating questions are included to facilitate discussion, and a rubric is provided for assessment.

This short video focuses on how the melting of snow creates a more sticky substance that is easier to make snowballs with.