6th Grade - Unit 2: Human Impact on Earth's Climate

Instructional Sequence

Assessment Types at
This Stage

Assessment Description

Learning Target

Engage

Prediction and Written Responses: Students analyze data to explain differences in climates between cities that are close in distance. 

Open-Ended Discussion: Students’ background knowledge is assessed.

Students propose their initial ideas of what factors could explain observed differences in average monthly temperature and precipitation levels.

Students sort cards containing descriptions of events or ideas into the category of weather or climate.

At the end of the Engage lesson, students do not have to know the factors for explaining climate differences, but they should be informed by evidence.

In addition, students are not expected to know the exact nature of the difference between weather and climate. However, students should be aware that there is a difference.

Explore

Predictions and Inferences: 

Students analyze data and answer questions.

Students answer questions about the weather and climate of San Francisco and four other cities using a Tuva dataset.

Given San Francisco’s geographical location and elevation, students attempt to predict what factors could explain differences in observed temperatures.  

Students observe that different cities have different climates; they will be able to make predictions about why this is the case.

Students begin to analyze differences between average and daily temperatures.

Explain

Experimental Design: Students design and carry out investigations to explain the observed relationship between a region’s latitude and average monthly temperature.

Revise Model: Students revise their model for what factors influence a region’s climate.  

Pair Discussion and Written Responses: Students read and answer questions about the “Climate” article.

Students design experiments to understand how a region’s latitude affects the angle at which sunlight hits the region and affects its average temperature.

Students read an article about the factors that determine a city’s climate and how climate is different from weather. They discuss the article in pairs and as a whole class write responses to several questions.

Students will be able to better understand the role that a region’s latitude has on a region’s climate and how this relationship is mediated by a region’s elevation and proximity to large bodies of water.

Students should be able to connect their experimental results to the concept of latitudinal banding. Cities close to the equator tend to have hotter climates because they receive full-intensity solar radiation. Students should also be aware of the following pattern: cities close to the ocean have fewer really hot or really cold days. Students should have a general sense that this pattern is due to the fact that water heats and cools more slowly than land. This understanding connects to an energy transfer experiment with sand and water that students performed in Unit 6.1. In addition, higher elevations are associated with cooler temperatures because of the lower air density.

Students will also be able to distinguish between weather and climate.

Elaborate

Revision of Explanations:

Students revise their explanations for differences in observed temperatures.

Prediction and Written Responses: Students predict the climates of eight cities.

Students will apply their model to revise their explanations for the observed temperature differences in five cities.

Students use their understanding to predict the climates of eight cities.  These cities differ not only in latitude but also elevation and proximity to large bodies of water.

Students use their model to make predictions about a region’s climate and consider the interactions between the factors. It is the application of the model, rather than students having the “right” answers, that is  important.

Evaluate

Discussion and Written Responses: Students return to the cities introduced in the Explore lesson and explain their differences in climate.

Students explain why cities at the same latitude do not necessarily have the same climate.

Students describe the climate of San Francisco and explain how at least two factors contribute to the observed climate.

Students will demonstrate their understanding of how a region’s latitude, elevation, and proximity to large bodies of water affect a region’s climate.
 

Instructional Sequence

Assessment Types at
This Stage

Assessment Description

Learning Target

Engage

Open-Ended Discussion

Students analyze the gas content of the atmospheres of three planets and make connections to the planets’ climates.

Students discuss what they know about why global temperatures have risen over the past century. Students then work in pairs to determine what factors might be contributing to rising global temperatures. Students discuss and make predictions about what factors may be natural, human caused, or both. 

Students identify factors that are causing global temperatures to rise. Students see the correlation between human impact factors and temperature rise. Students see that natural causes have not changed enough in the last 200 years to create big increases in Earth’s surface temperatures. It is not necessary at this point for all students to note this correlation.

Explore

Analyze Data, Make Predictions, and Conduct an Investigation

Students analyze a Tuva dataset about CO₂ concentration in Earth’s atmosphere over time. Students make a prediction about the effect this change has had on Earth’s climate over time. Students then conduct an experiment using heat lamps, thermometers, and open or closed bottles to test their prediction. Students then explore the Greenhouse Effect simulation. 

Students should understand that the amount of CO₂ in Earth’s atmosphere has increased over time. Students do not need to know why yet. Students should also have evidence from the experiment supporting the idea that an increase in CO₂ in the bottles leads to an increase in temperature. Students explore how a greenhouse works and develop the idea that added greenhouse gases increase surface temperatures on Earth. 

Explain

Conduct an Investigation,

Pair Discussion, and Written Responses

Students conduct a lab to see how burning fuel releases CO₂ into the atmosphere. Students then engage in a paired reading protocol and answer questions about the “Human Impact on the Greenhouse Effect” article.

At this point, students should be able to explain the following:

• Human actions, such as burning fossil fuels, have led to an increase in CO₂ in the atmosphere. 
• This increase has led to an increase in Earth’s average temperature. This is because more CO₂ results in more energy being trapped in the atmosphere.

Elaborate

Analyze Data, Make Predictions, Cause and Effect Chains, and Written Responses

Students apply their understanding of the cause and effect chain between human actions and sea level rise in San Francisco. Students look at a land and ice map and make predictions about what will happen to land and sea ice if global temperatures continue to rise. Students then watch two time-lapse videos that serve as models for what will happen to sea levels if sea and land ice melt. Students read an excerpt from a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration article to put together a cause and effect chain from human actions to sea level rise. Students then explore a sea level rise simulator to learn how different levels of sea level rise will affect the San Francisco Bay Area.

Students should be able to 

• Expand the cause and effect chain to include the effects of increased temperature on land and sea ice and ocean water. Focus on students’ understanding that more land ice melting increases the amount of water in oceans. Some students might also explain that higher temperatures cause water to expand, which also leads to sea level rise.
• Take the general information learned about human impact on global temperature change and apply it to the effects human impacts will have on future sea levels in San Francisco.

Evaluate

Cause and Effect Model,  Written Responses

Students make a model that shows how human impacts create increased temperatures on Earth. Students illustrate how human-caused factors are causing temperature changes, which leads to sea level rise. Students then write explanations about the causes and effects of human impacts on global temperatures as a preparation step toward their Culminating Project.

Students should be able to 

• Explain that humans have changed the greenhouse effect over time.
• Use the article from the Explain lesson, their graphic organizer, and their Science Notebook to create a model that shows how the enhanced greenhouse effect leads to global temperature rise and sea level rise. 
• Indicate that human impacts release additional greenhouse gases, causing global temperatures to rise. Students will learn more about what types of activities contribute to climate change in Subunit 3.

Instructional Sequence

Assessment Types at 

This Stage

Assessment Description

Learning Target

Engage

Written Responses, Discussion

Students take an open-ended survey and discuss personal actions that release carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

Students do not need to know every single action that they take that contributes to an increase in carbon dioxide in the air. However, students should understand at least one or two of the more common examples (for example, I rode the bus and when it uses gasoline it releases carbon dioxide). Encourage students to use the table in their Student Book for ideas.

Explore

Analyze Data and Written Responses

Students analyze San Francisco Unified School District (SFUSD) energy, and transportation data.

Students should be able to 

• Answer the question about increases or decreases based on the data provided.

Explain

Written Response

Students create a cause and effect diagram to help them explain how a particular action taken by the school increases its carbon footprint.

Based on information learned in Subunit 2, students should be able to 

• Explain the cause and effect chain from the action to its impact on Earth’s climate.

Elaborate

Draft a Plan to Reduce the School’s Impact on Earth’s Climate

Based on their own brainstorming and research from the School Action Cards, groups begin to consider their plans for meeting the SFUSD sustainability goals.

Students should be able to 

• Formulate ideas for reducing their personal impact on Earth’s climate.

Evaluate

Write, Present, and Critique Plans

Group Culminating Project: 

• Write a letter to SFUSD and city officials.
• Present plan to class.

Individual Culminating Project:

• Read and provide feedback on the clarity and effectiveness of a group’s plan.

Students should be able to 

• Apply what they have learned about human actions that contribute to climate change as well as mitigation techniques to create a plan with at least two actions that would reduce the school’s carbon footprint. See the Lift-Off lesson for more details.
   

Desired Results

Overview

To create a plan that will help their school meet the sustainability goals of the San Francisco Unified School District (SFUSD), students learn about the impact humans have on Earth’s climate, specifically, increasing global surface temperatures. Students learn about three factors that determine a region’s climate—latitude, elevation, and proximity to a large body of water—as well as how climate is different from weather. Students learn that burning fuel releases carbon dioxide into the atmosphere and that increased carbon dioxide in the atmosphere creates an enhanced greenhouse effect that increases global surface temperatures. Next, students investigate the effect that changes to Earth’s surface temperature has on sea level and consider how this issue might affect San Francisco, a coastal city. Finally, students consider changes their school could make to reduce carbon emissions that would reduce its impact on Earth’s climate. Students work collaboratively to create a plan that will be submitted to the SFUSD Office of Sustainability or the San Francisco Department of the Environment. 

Project Tasks

Connections to Culminating Project Lift-Off: Students will identify the area of focus on - energy or transportation. 

Connections to Culminating Project Subunit 1: Students will describe San Francisco’s climate, describe at least two causes of the climate in San Francisco, and explain how and why today’s weather may be similar to or different from the overall climate in San Francisco.

Connections to Culminating Project Subunit 2: Students will draw a model of the causes and effects of surface temperature changes on Earth, and use the model to help explain: (1) how greenhouse gases have been increasing in Earth’s atmosphere, (2) how the increase of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases is changing surface temperatures on Earth, (3) how the changes in Earth’s surface temperature will affect sea levels globally and in coastal communities like San Francisco, and (4) How a rise in sea levels will affect the city of San Francisco.

Connections to Culminating Project Subunit 3: Students will focus entirely on completing the group and individual culminating projects during this subunit.

Estimated length of project: 245 minutes

ESTABLISHED GOALS

MS-ESS2-6. Develop and use a model to describe how unequal heating and rotation of the Earth cause patterns of atmospheric and oceanic circulation that determine regional climates. [Clarification Statement: Emphasis is on how patterns vary by latitude, altitude, and geographic land distribution. Emphasis of atmospheric circulation is on the sunlight-driven latitudinal banding, the Coriolis effect, and resulting prevailing winds; emphasis of ocean circulation is on the transfer of heat by the global ocean convection cycle, which is constrained by the Coriolis effect and the outlines of continents. Examples of models can be diagrams, maps and globes, or digital representations.] [Assessment Boundary: Assessment does not include the dynamics of the Coriolis effect.] 

MS-ESS3-5. Ask questions to clarify evidence of the factors that have caused the rise in global temperatures over the past century. [Clarification Statement: Examples of factors include human activities (such as fossil fuel combustion, cement production, and agricultural activity) and natural processes (such as changes in incoming solar radiation or volcanic activity). Examples of evidence can include tables, graphs, and maps of global and regional temperatures, atmospheric levels of gases such as carbon dioxide and methane, and the rates of human activities. Emphasis is on the major role that human activities play in causing the rise in global temperatures.]

MS-ESS3-3. Apply scientific principles to design a method for monitoring and minimizing a human impact on the environment. [Clarification Statement: Examples of the design process include examining human environmental impacts, assessing the kinds of solutions that are feasible, and designing and evaluating solutions that could reduce that impact. Examples of human impacts can include water usage (such as the withdrawal of water from streams and aquifers or the construction of dams and levees), land usage (such as urban development, agriculture, or the removal of wetlands), and pollution (such as of the air, water, or land).]

NGSS Lead States. 2013. Next Generation Science Standards: For States, By States. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.

ESSENTIAL QUESTION

How can we create a plan to meet the SFUSD Sustainability Goals in our school?

Students will be able to independently use their learning to

• Analyze data about the school’s current carbon footprint in the areas of energy and transportation.
• Construct a written and visual version of a plan for actions the school can take to reduce carbon emissions from transportation or energy use and meet the SFUSD sustainability goals.
• Write an explanation supported by evidence explaining why global temperatures and sea level are rising.
• Write an explanation supported by evidence of how their plan will reduce carbon dioxide emissions.

Students will know

• That a region’s latitude, elevation, and proximity to large bodies of water affect its climate.
• That humans have altered the greenhouse effect over time by releasing additional greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, thus causing global temperatures to rise.
• That human impacts on global climate can and should be mitigated through careful planning and analysis of data.

Evidence

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PERFORMANCE TASK: Writing a letter describing a proposed plan of action to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. At the end of this unit, groups write a letter to the SFUSD Office of Sustainability or the San Francisco Department of the Environment that describes their proposal for actions their school can take to meet the SFUSD energy or transportation goals and explains why they think it is important to make these changes. The students’ arguments will be based on what they learned and the data they collected throughout the unit. 

Individual Culminating Project: Critique of Group Plan

In addition to the Group Culminating Project, students work on an Individual Culminating Project. Individually, students choose one of the plans they observed during the gallery walk (it should be the same focus area as their own group’s plan) and discuss the benefits and drawbacks of this plan using evidence.

Learning Plan

Subunit 1

In this subunit, students explore monthly average temperatures as one indicator of a region’s climate because this unit explores the effects of increased global temperatures on phenomena like sea level rise. This subunit focuses on three factors that influence a region’s climate: latitude, which affects how directly sunlight hits a particular region; elevation, which tends to cool temperatures due to decreased air density; and proximity to large bodies of water, which minimizes the ranges of temperatures experienced. Information is provided in the subunit to explain how these factors influence a region’s climate. In addition, there is an article that follows: “The Sun’s Effect on Earth’s Climate,” which provides a more in-depth explanation for how these factors influence a region’s climate.

Subunit 2

In this subunit, students explore the atmospheric composition of the Earth, and understand that the greenhouse gases work together to create a balanced system that helps support life. As students progress through this subunit they will understand that climate is driven mainly by energy received from the Sun, and that Earth’s average temperature is determined by the overall balance between the amount of incoming energy from the sun and the amount of radiant heat that makes it through the atmosphere and is emitted into space. Any imbalance between incoming and outgoing energy in Earth’s climate system gives rise to the various weather patterns seen around the world, which can be affected by human activities.

Subunit 3

In this subunit, students have the opportunity to complete their group and individual culminating projects.

Unit Map

Human Impact on Earth’s Climate

Essential Question: How can we create a plan to meet the SFUSD Sustainability Goals in our school?

Lift-Off and Introduction to the Culminating Project

Subunit 1: Regional Climate

What factors affect a region’s climate?

Engage • Explore • Explain • Elaborate • Evaluate

Subunit 2: Earth’s Changing Climate

Why have global temperatures risen over the past century and how do we know?

Engage • Explore • Explain • Elaborate • Evaluate

Subunit 3: Reducing Human Impact on Earth’s Climate

What actions can we take against rising temperature and the effects of sea level rise?

Engage • Explore • Explain • Elaborate • Evaluate

Group Culminating Project

Letter to SFUSD Office of Sustainability or San Francisco Department of the Environment
and

Oral presentation of the plan to the class

Individual Culminating Project

Review and provide feedback on a group’s plan
 

Course Concepts

+ Foundational Crosscutting Concepts: These concepts are foundational to the understanding of middle school science. These concepts are present throughout the course. Students are expected to continue to apply their knowledge of the concepts to subsequent relevant projects. 

* Focal Crosscutting Concept: This concept is called out consistently in the Teacher Book and once per subunit in the Student Book. Students will consider the unit project through the lens of this Crosscutting Concept. 

Crosscutting Concept

Unit 1: Energy

Unit 2: Human Impact on Earth’s Climate

Unit 3: Cells and Body Systems

Unit 4: Reproduction and Heredity

Patterns

*

Cause and Effect

+

*

+

+

Scale, Proportion, and Quantity

+

+

Systems and System Models

+

+

*

Energy and Matter

*

Structure and Function

+

Stability and Change

+

Science and Engineering Practices 

+ Foundational Science and Engineering Practices: These practices “carry forward” through the course. Students focus on one of these practices per unit and are then expected to continue to apply that knowledge to subsequent relevant projects. 

* Focal Science and Engineering Practice: This practice is called out consistently in the Teacher Book and once per subunit in the Student Book. Students will use this practice to complete the unit project. 

Science and Engineering 

Practices

Unit 1: Energy

Unit 2: Human Impact on Earth’s Climate

Unit 3: Cells and Body Systems

Unit 4: Reproduction and Heredity

Asking Questions and Defining Problems 

+

+

Developing and Using Models 

*

+

+

+

Planning and Carrying Out Investigations 

+

+

+

Analyzing and Interpreting Data

+

*

Using Mathematics and Computational Thinking

Constructing Explanations and Designing Solutions

+

+

*

Engaging in Argument from Evidence

+

*

+

Obtaining, Evaluating, and Communicating Information

+

+

+

MS-ESS2-6

Develop and use a model to describe how unequal heating and rotation of the Earth cause patterns of atmospheric and oceanic circulation that determine regional climates. [Clarification Statement: Emphasis is on how patterns vary by latitude, altitude, and geographic land distribution. Emphasis of atmospheric circulation is on the sunlight-driven latitudinal banding, the Coriolis effect, and resulting prevailing winds; emphasis of ocean circulation is on the transfer of heat by the global ocean convection cycle, which is constrained by the Coriolis effect and the outlines of continents. Examples of models can be diagrams, maps and globes, or digital representations.] [Assessment Boundary: Assessment does not include the dynamics of the Coriolis effect.]

MS-ESS3-5

Ask questions to clarify evidence of the factors that have caused the rise in global temperatures over the past century. [Clarification Statement: Examples of factors include human activities (such as fossil fuel combustion, cement production, and agricultural activity) and natural processes (such as changes in incoming solar radiation or volcanic activity). Examples of evidence can include tables, graphs, and maps of global and regional temperatures, atmospheric levels of gases such as carbon dioxide and methane, and the rates of human activities. Emphasis is on the major role that human activities play in causing the rise in global temperatures.]

MS-ESS3-3

Apply scientific principles to design a method for monitoring and minimizing a human impact on the environment. [Clarification Statement: Examples of the design process include examining human environmental impacts, assessing the kinds of solutions that are feasible, and designing and evaluating solutions that could reduce that impact. Examples of human impacts can include water usage (such as the withdrawal of water from streams and aquifers or the construction of dams and levees), land usage (such as urban development, agriculture, or the removal of wetlands), and pollution (such as of the air, water, or land).]

Misconceptions 

Accurate Concept

There is nothing we can do to stop climate change and it is going to destroy all life on earth.

Concern over climate change need not be linked to catastrophic scenarios. While continued global warming will have strong impacts on human societies and on ecosystems, a total die-off is very unlikely. Potential mitigation plans exist that would limit sea level rise (for example, to 1 meter), limit species extinction (for example, to 20%), and be accomplished within reasonable world economic and population scenarios by 2100. 

Misconceptions 

Accurate Concept

Weather anomalies can be used as evidence for or against climate change. 

Weather and climate are not identical. Weather involves phenomena that last a short period of time. It’s what is happening outside, right now.

Climate can be thought of as the average weather for a region. Regional climate characteristics give rise to weather. For this reason, there is a link between climate change and weather, including anomalies. But any particular weather event cannot “prove” that climate change is happening. 

An important source of evidence for climate change comes from observations that average weather (for example, average temperature and precipitation) has changed for a region. 

The equator is closer to the sun than the North Pole is (AAAS Project 2061, n.d.).

From American Association of the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Misconceptions (http://assessment.aaas.org/misconceptions/CLM018/317)

The difference in climate between the equator and the North Pole is not due to differences in distance from the Sun (which is insignificant), but from the angle of incoming sunlight. Cities close to the equator receive full intensity solar radiation. As you move north or south towards the poles, sunlight is spread over larger surfaces. 

Misconceptions 

Accurate Concept

Burning fossil fuels uses them up. 

Burning is a chemical process that follows the law of conservation of matter. Carbon stored by plants and fossilized into oil or coal does not disappear when it burns. The process of combustion combines oxygen with carbon, releasing the invisible and odorless greenhouse gas, CO2. 

Humans adding carbon dioxide to the atmosphere is increasing the total amount of carbon in the environment. This might throw the carbon cycle out of balance.

Carbon follows the law of conservation of matter. Human activities have the effect of transferring carbon stored in plants and fossil fuels to the atmosphere. The amount of carbon in the atmosphere (and also in the oceans) is increasing, but the total amount of carbon on earth is staying the same. 

Pollution affects the carbon cycle. If the air, for example, is polluted, then this pollution will travel up into the atmosphere and it will travel all along the cycle adding pollutants to the environment.

The matter that moves in the carbon cycle is carbon, though it may be attached to other atoms. For example, it may move through the cycle as carbon dioxide. 

Other air pollutants, like smog particles, are carried to the ground by the water cycle. Pollutant is a catch-all term. CO2 is more correctly thought of as a greenhouse gas than as a pollutant. 

Globally, sea level is rising because ice is melting in bodies of water.

Source: Yale Climate Connections (https://www.yaleclimateconnections.org/2014/11/loss-of-land-ice-not-sea-ice-more-sea-level-rise)

Land ice includes mountain glaciers and ice sheets, covering Greenland and Antarctica. These giant blocks of ice are melting and the water is flowing rapidly into the oceans. Think of it like adding water to an already full glass—it soon overflows. But melting sea ice behaves differently. It has no impact on sea level rise because it’s already floating in the ocean.

Like a glass of ice water. As it warms, the ice in the glass melts, but the total volume of water does not change. Another factor that has led to sea level rise is the fact that as water is heated, it expands. Globally, sea levels have risen four to eight inches since the last century and will continue to rise as the ice melts, putting coastal communities worldwide at risk.

Source:  Yale Climate Connections (https://www.yaleclimateconnections.org/2014/11/loss-of-land-ice-not-sea-ice-more-sea-level-rise)

Misconception 

Accurate Concept

Making changes to address climate change will cost too much money.

Source: U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (https://19january2017snapshot.epa.gov/climatechange_.html)

As thousands of households and businesses have already discovered, improving energy efficiency in our homes and products can reduce greenhouse gas emissions and also save money. EPA’s ENERGY STAR program, a voluntary initiative that drives more widespread use of energy-efficient products and practices, has saved U.S. businesses, organizations, and consumers more than $362 billion in energy costs since 1992 while avoiding more than 2 billion metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions.

Source:  U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (https://19january2017snapshot.epa.gov/climatechange_.html)

Climate change is too big of a problem for my changes to make a difference.

Source:  U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (https://19january2017snapshot.epa.gov/climatechange_.html)

Small actions really add up! There are many actions that individuals, schools, and businesses can take to reduce their carbon footprint and act on climate change. Simple actions such as using energy-efficient light bulbs, looking for the ENERGY STAR label on appliances and other products, recycling and composting, purchasing green power, using public transit, and bicycling or walking instead of driving can make a difference by reducing your household’s carbon footprint.

Source:  U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (https://19january2017snapshot.epa.gov/climatechange_.html)

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Consumable

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