Understanding the climatic cycles and ecosystems on Earth gives students a better vision of how climate change is affecting our environment. Climate programs focus on providing teacher training through professional development opportunities, providing science-based resources and tools for hands-on exploration. This allows students to discover how better management of natural resources promotes sustainability of the planet.
DCSD Sustainability Library
Elementary
Sustainability connections to the CAS:
Climate describes patterns of typical weather conditions over different scales and variations; historical weather patterns can be analyzed.
A variety of weather hazards result from natural process; humans cannot eliminate weather-related hazards but can reduce their impacts.
Adaptation by natural selection acting over generations is one important process by which species change over time in response to changes in environmental conditions.
Complex interactions determine local weather patterns and influence climate, including the role of the ocean.
Human activities have altered the biosphere, sometimes damaging it, although changes to environments can have different impacts for different living things.
Human activities affect global warming. Decisions to reduce the impact of global warming depend on understanding climate science, engineering capabilities, and social dynamics.
Earth’s systems, being dynamic and interacting, cause feedback effects that can increase or decrease the original changes, and these effects occur on different time scales, from sudden (e.g., volcanic ash clouds) to intermediate (ice ages) to very long-term tectonic cycles.
The role of radiation from the sun and its interactions with the atmosphere, ocean, and land are the foundation for the global climate system. Global climate models are used to predict future changes, including changes influenced by human behavior and natural factors.
The biosphere and Earth’s other systems have many interconnections that cause a continual co-evolution of Earth’s surface and life on it.
Global climate models used to predict future climate change continue to improve our understanding of the impact of human activities on the global climate system.
