CLEAN: Climate Literacy and Energy Awareness Network
CLEAN: The Climate Literacy and Energy Awareness Network supports educators in building climate literacy as outlined in the U.S. Climate Change Science Program framework, “Essential Principles of Climate Literacy” by providing a collection of educational resources that facilitate learning about climate issues. The CLEAN collection is a free online database of ~1,000 free, peer-reviewed, and ready-to-use educational resources for teaching elementary, middle, high school, and undergraduate students about climate and energy. The collection contains activities, demonstrations, experiments, visualizations, and videos—everything you need to create data-rich and authentic lessons on climate and energy. Climate and energy topics include the climate system, causes of climate change, measuring and modeling climate, impacts of climate change, human responses and solutions to climate change, energy use, mental health, environmental justice, and many more. Resources are rigorously reviewed for scientific accuracy and pedagogic relevancy, making the CLEAN collection of high enough quality to steward the NOAA Teaching Climate database.
This lesson plan engages students in a real-life exploration of climate change …
This lesson plan engages students in a real-life exploration of climate change as it is affected by greenhouse emissions from vehicles. The aim of this activity is for students to realize the impact of vehicle use in their family and to give students the opportunity to brainstorm viable alternatives to this use.
This short, time-lapse video shows the changes in the Columbia Glacier from …
This short, time-lapse video shows the changes in the Columbia Glacier from May 12, 2007 to August 20, 2010. Narration provides general description of the geophysical dynamics and processes.
In this activity, students explore the basic living requirements of algae (phytoplankton)through …
In this activity, students explore the basic living requirements of algae (phytoplankton)through hands-on experience and an interactive game. Students investigate what algal biofuels are, how they are made, where they can grow, and, most importantly, why this topic should be investigated. Algal biofuels are an emerging source of renewable energy.
This animation depicts the carbon cycle in a fashion that is suited …
This animation depicts the carbon cycle in a fashion that is suited for younger audiences. The video discusses how carbon enters and exits the environment through both natural and human-driven ways.
This lesson is a lab in which students use thermometers, white and …
This lesson is a lab in which students use thermometers, white and dark paper, and lamps to measure differences in albedo between the light and dark materials. Connections are made to albedo in Antarctica.
Children experiment with freezing water to observe a state change of water, …
Children experiment with freezing water to observe a state change of water, and discover that it is less dense as a solid (ice) than it is as a liquid (water). Amazing Expanding Ice is an overnight activity requiring 20 minutes of preparation, overnight freezing of the experiment, and 10 minutes of follow-up discussion.
This video provides a detailed description of the habitat of the American …
This video provides a detailed description of the habitat of the American Pika and how this organism may serve as a climate indicator species because they have a relatively narrow ecological niche and specialized habitat.
This video production is a part of a four-panel report from the …
This video production is a part of a four-panel report from the National Academies' America's Climate Choices project. The video maps out the realm of our accumulated knowledge regarding climate change and charts a path forward, urging that research on climate change enter a new era focused on the needs of decision makers.
A video that discusses the perspectives and insights necessary to report out …
A video that discusses the perspectives and insights necessary to report out about climate change. The video can be used to demonstrate how different perspectives impact different stakeholders and different levels, and that there is a need to have a clear, coordinated national response.
This video from the U.S. National Academies summarizes the energy challenges the …
This video from the U.S. National Academies summarizes the energy challenges the United States faces, including the technological challenges, and the need for changes in consumption and in energy policy.
This activity covers the causes, effects, and mitigation of urban heat in …
This activity covers the causes, effects, and mitigation of urban heat in New York City. Students use data sets, graphs, maps and images to create their own plan for mitigation in their area. Robust satellite images, city data, tables, maps, and graphs are included in the resource for students to explore.
This short video describes how the compression of Antarctic snow into ice …
This short video describes how the compression of Antarctic snow into ice captures air from past atmospheres. It shows how ice cores are drilled from the Antarctic ice and prepared for shipment and subsequent analysis.
This map shows how much electrical power is produced from wind in …
This map shows how much electrical power is produced from wind in each state from 1999 through 2010. The animation shows a general increase in the amount of wind power produced per state and the number of states producing it.
This series of visualizations show the annual Arctic sea ice minimum from …
This series of visualizations show the annual Arctic sea ice minimum from 1979 to 2015. The decrease in Arctic sea ice over time is shown in an animation and a graph plotted simultaneously, but can be parsed so that the change in sea ice area can be shown without the graph.
This short video examines the recent melting ice shelves in the Antarctica …
This short video examines the recent melting ice shelves in the Antarctica Peninsula; the potential collapse of West Antarctic ice shelf; and how global sea levels, coastal cities, and beaches would be affected.
This activity is part of the Antarctica's Climate Secrets flexhibit. Students learn …
This activity is part of the Antarctica's Climate Secrets flexhibit. Students learn about and create models of glaciers and ice sheets, ice shelves, icebergs and sea ice.
Citizen scientist Anya, an indigenous Siberian girl, witnesses the changes in her …
Citizen scientist Anya, an indigenous Siberian girl, witnesses the changes in her community as a result of climate change after working with Woods Hole scientist Max Holmes' research team aboard her father's ship. She gets involved in collecting water samples to learn, and teach her schoolmates about, global warming.
This short video from NASA discusses the role that salinity plays in …
This short video from NASA discusses the role that salinity plays in Earth's climate and ocean circulation, focusing on the observations of the Aquarius satellite.
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