>> Lisa is an educational
designer at UCAR Center for
Science Education where she
developed educational resources
for K through 12 students,
teachers and the public. And she
does this to help foster
understanding of weather,
climate does to help foster
understanding of weather
climate. And earth system
science. Lisa is especially fond
of interdisciplinary curriculum
that mix together science, art,
social studies geography and
language arts. She received a
Ph.D in Geology with a focus on
Paleo GEology from the
University of Georgia and more
recently earned her masters of
fine art in creative non-fiction
writing from Gaucher College in
order to hone her ability to
tell the story of science. Now
Lisa is the main contributor to
the blog of UCAR, that's
University Center for
Atmospheric Research Center of
science education and she is
also been an occasional
contributor to Science and
American Blog. Now, Dr. Diane
Stanitski, another one of our
presenters is Deputy Director of
Planning and Administration in
NOOA's Global MOD Division. As a
physical scientist, Diane has
helped ocean atmosphere for
climate and prior to working for
NOOA, Diane was an associate
professor at Chippenberg
University. She taught at the
University of Colorado, Boulder
and at the U.S. Naval Academy.
>> She's authored and
co-authored five children's
science books, taught student
science courses in Australia,
Viet Nam and the Grand Canyon.
And has coordinated the NOAA
Adopt the Drifter Program. If
you don't know about the Adopt
the Drifter Program, you should
check it out. It is pretty cool.
Now, Becca Hathleway. another
one of our presenters this
evening, she is the manager of
teaching and Learning at the
UCAR Center for Science
Education as well. She is the
project manager for elementary
Globe and has co-authored the 7
storybooks that we will be
talking about this evening. She
also developed many of the
classroom activities in the
search, managed classroom field
testing material and she
develops content about weather,
climate and first system science
for K through and 12 students
and the general public. And this
past June, she completed a new
exhibition about climate change
which is on permanent display at
the National Center Atmospheric
Research in Boulder. Now, she's
been science educated for
nineteen years, taught
elementary school for two years,
has a BA in Religion and
Environment Studies from Colgate
university and a masters of
Education in science education
from western Washington
university. Finally, last but
not least, certainly is Jessica
Taylor who is a physical
scientist at NASA's Langely
Research Center, she is the lead
trainer for the Globe
Atmospheric Training Center for
Excellence and the education and
public outreach league for the
Calypso Mission. Now JEssica has
over seven years of experience
in meteorology and
bridging the gap between science
of the studies in atmospheric
science and educational
outreach, STEM. Now she has
worked in various formal and
informal science education
programs including globe;
explore,; REALM and also, at the
challenger learning center. And
most recently as a curriculum
developer and professional
developer lead for the College
of William and Mary STEM
educational Alliance. She's
taught introduction to
meteorology and teaching earth
and space science at Florida
state University. Has a BS in
Meteorology, a BA in Science,
and a Masters in science
education from Florida state
university Phew! Now that I have
introduced all of our terrific
presenters, Lisa, the floor is
yours.
>> Thanks so much Bruce. This is
Jessica and I'm going to go
ahead and get us started
tonight. Thank you very much for
joining us this evening. We're
really excited to spend some
time tonight talking with you
about teaching climate to
elementary age through our brand
new storybook, "what in the
world is happening to our
climate." And as I mentioned,
this book is entitled a series
of resources through elementary
Globe. But before we get
started, we want to know a
little bit more about the one
hundred plus people who have
joined us tonight. So if you
could go ahead and start the
first poll for us. >> Okay. >>
we would like to know a little
bit more about the
environment that you work in.
And who you work with and who do
you educate? So if you could all
take this poll. >> Anybody who
is not used to this, click your
mouse right on your screen. I'll
you just about a minute to make
sure that everyone puts in their
answer. Okay. We got about 89,
91 percent voting. WE will leave
it open for another moment.
Okay. Let's close it up and see
who is here this evening. Okay,
Jessica can you see that? >>
Yeah, wonderful. So I see that
there are 35 percent of you who
work with elementary age
students. ,Ten percent middle
and high school, ten percent
college and 41 perccent% in the
public in formal education
settings. And 4 percent working
with their own children
grandchildren and friend
children. Wonderful, thank you
very much for doing that. We are
going to go ahead and -- -I
mentioned before about resources
that we are going to talk to you
about tonight are part of a
program called globe. And we
want to get a feel for how many
of you are familiar with the
globe program. So if you would
bear with us and take just one
more poll for us so we can find
out a little bit more about you
guys. >> okay, so again, please
select on the choice. >> Looks
like we are looking at poll
results. Bruce? >> Yeah. >>
Well, we can keep that a mystery
if we have to. >> I apologize.
Something happened with this so
we are just going to have to --
you know move forward.
>> Everyone has globe power.
What we often find is that there
are some individuals who have
maybe heard of the globe program
but are not necessarily actively
participating in it. And if not
this is a great opportunity for
us to give you a little snippet
of what the globe program is.
And globe, if you look at these
pictures here on the screen,
globe invites schools and
communities to learn about their
environment through a series of
resources. And these resources
are all co-developed by
scientists and educators.
Students go out into their local
environment and they collect
environmental observation. They
collect data about their own
backyard and students have the
opportunity to then share that
data with others either globe
students, scientists, the
community at LARGE. And there is
various opportunities to do that
through the website and some of
these pictures here are from the
globe student science symposium.
I want to give you a little idea
of who is involved in this Globe
program. Now over 120 countries
that participate in Globe so it
is truly an international
collaboration that allow
students to learn about their
environment, about birth at the
local level, regional level and
at global scales. So globe uses
a number of data collection
protocols so it is a series of
steps as well as scientific
instrument specifications to
help us in collecting our data.
And we do that so that we are
all collecting data in the same
way using that same instrument
list, using the same list of
steps so
that we can compare our data
around the globe. And there are
protocols collective
measurements across the earth
spheres. And so you see we have
atmosphere protocols
hydrosphere, biosphere and
petisphere spinning the soil.
And together when combined, this
can help us better understand
our earth as a system. So the
globe program took that same
idea of looking at the earth
system through spheres and you
can see that reflected in what
we called the elementary globe
resources. And these there were
designed to help students and
teachers learn about the
practices of being a scientist
with the globe program. There
are a total of seven storybooks.
And in each of the storybooks,
the globe kids were Simon, Anita
and Dennis. They go on a globe
adventure to understand their
environment. And each of these
storybooks is accompanied by
three learning activities that
help to better aid in
understanding the science
concepts or science practices
themselves. And today, we are
here to talk about a brand new
storybook, "what in the world is
happening to our climate." so
I'm going to go ahead and turn
it over to Lisa and she's going
to share with you more about how
these resources get developed.
>> Thanks Jessica. SO we're
going to to dive into more
detail about this new book. And
over the year, we have refined
the process developing
elementary storybooks. So I'm
going to share with you how that
works for the creation of this
one, "What in the world is
happening to our climate." So to
get started, we did some
research. First, we reviewed
existing resources about this
topic that included storybooks
and tradebooks and other
curriculum. From this research
we learned that there are not
very many elementary resources
about climate change. Many of
the existing resources are more
aboutt bioregional or reginal
climates and so early on, we
reviewed the pre-works for
science education and the next
generation science standards,and
the climate literacy essential
principles to learn what
teachers will need to cover on
this topic as well. So now we
would really like to hear from
you about whether you use in
particular the next generation
science standards in your
teaching environment. We know
that some of you teach in states
that have adopted the NGSS which
are relative new, Some are in
states that have not technically
adopted the NGSS but are using
something close to it. And some
are in states that use other
standards. And it looks like a
lot of you are in formal
education so using that. Now,
through our next poll question
if we can Bruce, we would love
to get a sense of whether you
are using the next generation
science standards. >> Okay, we
got our system working right
this time. >> all right. >>We
got 85 % of folks loading and we
are keep it up for just another
few seconds. >> Okay. So I'm
seeing there that about half of
you are from states that have
adopted the
NGSS and another quarter of you
have used the NGSS has not
adopted it and another quarter
say no. So that is interesting
to us as curriculum developers.
We are always wondering whether
teachers are using these
standards or just wanting to use
them. So thank you very much for
filling that out. We can
continue now. Okay. the slides
go back to the beginning -- here
we go. For those of you who are
familiar with the next
generation slides will look very
familiar. This slide list core
ideas that are covered in the
storybook learning about weather
conditions and how these
conditions are measured, how
weather and climate are
connected including time scales
and how human impact our climate
both in terms of human
activities and energy use. So in
the story book, there are three
little kids, Anita, Simon and
Dennis also model the science
and engineering practices that
are listed here and this is a
common thread through the
elementary globe series of
books. These are fictional
stories about kids who are doing
the process of science. And so
they are modeling that process.
The GLobe kids ask questions,
they design and carry out new
investigation and live data,
evaluate that information and
and develop explanations and
solutions. The ways that the
Globe kids explore climate in
the book can serve as a model
for students working on these
performance expectations. They
observe and
record weather conditions. They
look for patterns in these
observations, learn about
climate in the different parts
of the world and develop an
understanding of where energy
comes from and how our energy
use affects the natural world.
So after viewing the standards
and doing a survey of the
existing researches, we started
brainstorming the content we
wanted to cover in this story
book. And they didn't use books
before by page spread so we know
we have 26 pages to work with
for the main story of the book.
So that's 13 spreads. And we use
a story board to organize our
ideas and on this slide, you see
examples. These are actually
very messy brainstorm notes on
the bottom left. On the bottom
right and notes about the story
line going on in each spread on
the top right. And Becca can
tell you we worked together up
until this point. And once we
settled on this story board,
Becca and Diane got to work
writing their draft text. And
they kept -- this was very
useful- they kept a list of
notes about what can be included
in the illustration as they went
along because you know, in the
children's books, often the
words reflect the illustrations
The illustrations reflect the
words but they are not exact
copies of each other's. So that
was very helpful. So what they
had, a draft of the text. I
painted brackets and once we had
the sketches, Becca and Diane
revised the text removing words
that were unnecessary once we
had the information conveyed
visually I
the illustrations. So at that
point, we sent the first full
draft out for review. And it was
reviewed by teachers and climate
scientists and Globe program
partners and trainers who tend
to be both scientists and
teachers themselves. So we
received a lot of very helpful
feedback from the source
reviewers. @@@ We incorporated
that into the next draft. And
this slide shows one of the back
and white sketches in its final
color illustration on the right.
And you can see that the content
of the illustration changed
somewhat from the pencil sketch.
And these changes were formed by
all the feedback we received
from reviewers. So this slide
differs and the great
discussions we had with
scientists and educators about
how fast to communicate about
greenhouse gases and the
greenhouse effect for K Force to
use. And in a really tight -- in
a really tight format. So
really, we just had this one
illustration to show the
greenhouse effect. You can't
show everything and it's
probably not age appropriate to
do so. SO what sort of key
things should you point out so
you will notice for instance,
that in the color version, we
used different, different
colored arrows for the energy
coming to earth from the sun and
the energy going away from the
earth. And we have a key to
those as well. So little pieces
of paper on that table moved
around a bit to include the
carbon dioxide molecule closer
to the explanation diagram of
the
greenhouse effect. So there are
some total changes there. And
then there are some things that
you know, tightened up. Like you
will see a note in the sketch
that says replace with world map
and I did that. But then, we
also developed a companion cross
activities which added a
hands-on topic covered in the
book. And this is the format
from all the other elementary
globe modules as well. and I'll
share more detail about these
later in the webinar. But once
we have the second draft of the
story book with the color
illustration in the activity, we
conducted a classroom field test
and a second scientific view, we
had four elementary teachers
field test the materials with
their students and they were
located all over the country, in
Colorado, New York, North
Carolina and Texas. and from a
variety of grades in the K-4
grade range. And we asked the
teachers to read the book and do
the activities with their
students and they documented how
it went made comments and photos
to us and they shared
information about the
readability of the materials
with their students, the
usability of the test in the
storybook and feedback about
which scientific onsets they
needed to know more about. And
what needs to happen to improve
the classroom activities. So
This feedback is really
invaluable to us and helps us
improve the material before we
finalized them. So here you will
see some comments from teachers
and students on the left. and on
the
right, they sent back the
storybooks that they annotated
all over to say what they liked
and what they needed to add as
they went through the storybook
with their students. So once we
received the field fest, we did
final revisions and then we
shared the resources on the
globe website. So, at the end of
the webinar, I will tell you
where to find those materials
online. They should all be
available on line. And we're
done discussing our process and
making the storybook. Diane is
going to tell you about the
content covered in the storybook
and the storyline. >> Thank you
Lisa. Before I go into an
explanation of the book itself,
I wanted to mention that as we
brain stormed ideas for the
topic in the book,we recognized
a big idea that seemed to be
really important for the story.
And that's the idea that climate
is changing in different ways
and laces around the world and
what happens to climate in one
place absolutely affects other
rotations across the globe. So
basically everything is
inter-connected So different
illustrations and content in the
book relate to this big idea as
well as the supporting ideas
that you see below. And These
help address different grade
appropriate standards. The
supporting ideas focus on the
difference between weather and
climate. They introduce a number
of climate science like the
greenhouse effect that we were
just explaining and they discuss
the impact associated with sea
level rise and' the fact that
people can contribute to our
changing climate and they can
also participate in solutions to
address this challenge. After I
walk you through the book
quickly, what Lisa will show you
how teachers can use the
companion classroom activities
to address these supporting
ideas. So the book begins with
the Globe kids you heard about
before, Dennis, Anita and Simon
from left to right in the right
panel. and then Anita's dad who
is Dr. Sanchez and he is right
behind Anita. He is a scientist.
and the Globe kids experience is
a major snowball event. So to
describe the difference between
weather and climate and show how
the two are very much connected,
Anita teaches Simon and Dennis
how to take snowfall
measurements using a snowboard.
And the kids then compare their
daily weather observations and
longer term snowfall data with
past snow measurements to show
that this year's snowfall in
their town actually broke a
record. So the procedures they
followed to take the snowfall
measurements followed in the
line perfect with the globe
program precipitation protocol.
And you have seen this
illustration become but Anita's
dad sits down with the three
kids and provides very a general
description of the greenhouse
effect. And he explains why what
we all do and how the choices we
make affect temperatures, plants
and animals and weather and
climate. And he invites the kids
to take a journey with him to
help with
his research in the Artic and
Tropics. And of course they
enthusiastically agree to go and
be part of his research team.
And they are off. And this slide
shows that they make their way
to the Artic where Dr. Sanchez
is conducting research. And
while in the Artic, they learn
that melting ice noted in the
sea does not raise the level of
the ocean sons land contribute
to sea level rise. So Dennis
actually remembers that this
relates to an experiment they
did in school where they were
demonstrating the same concepts
and it is shown in the panel on
the right. And Dr. Sanchez
explains that rising sea levels
from melting glaciers in the
Artic impacts people in other
places across the Globe
including in the tropics and
that's one of his other research
sites. So his explanation sets
the stage for their upcoming
trip to Maldives and you notice
a group of tropical islands. And
we are skipping a couple of
illustrations here that
basically a few days later, they
arrive in the Maldives. And the
kids learn that the inhabitants
of the Island have had to go to
the sea wall to protect them
from rising sea level and some
people actually had to leave the
island because the ocean water
was starting to flood their
home. And they started making
connections between what they
saw in the Artic and what they
are seeing in the tropics. They
also see how animals and life in
the ocean are affected by
warming water temperatures. And
they have a chance to take
measurements and make
observations of the corral
reefs. So together they develop
ideas about how to share their
summer experiences and the
things that they learned along
the way with their teacher and
with other students in their
school at home. And after this
illustration, they sit on the
beach and they brainstorm ideas
about how they can change their
habits. So their actions don't
have as great an impact on
climate. And once they are back
in the classroom, the kids start
developing ideas to share at a
Globe international virtual
science fair. So during the
online science fair, globe
students from all around the
world demonstrated a number of
really cool projects. And they
discussed data sets they
collected. They discussed
solutions they tried out in
their communities to help solve
climate problems. And after
this, the storybook ends with
the kids talking about the
connection between climate
change and text they saw on the
trip with the ideas that data
collection and solutions they
learned about at the science
fair. So we begin putting all
the pieces together and they
take the information they
learned and they decide to turn
it into actions in their
communities. So this reinforces
one of those main ideas in the
book, that while people are
contributing to climate change,
they can also participate in
solutions that address the
challenges associated with
climate. At the
end of the book immediately
following the main story, there
are teacher notes, glossary and
they both provided additional
background information. The
teachers who need to understand
a little bit more about the
context and they help add
information to help the teachers
teach the context that was put
forward in the storybook. And at
this point, Lisa will now
discuss the connections between
the stories and the three
hands-on learning activities
that accompany the storybook. >>
Thanks Diane. So as mentioned,
as Diane mentioned, the
storybook includes these three
supporting ideas. And we wanted
to connect each one of these to
an activity that kids can do to
get some hands-on science
experience and further explore
that concept. And so as we go
through these activities, I
guess because there are so many
of you who teach in informal
education settings, I'd love for
you to think about how you might
adapt some of these activities.
Some would be finals. They are
probably in your settings. And
some might require some
adaptation. So we would love to
hear about any adaptations you
made to the activities too.
We're teaching in another
setting. >> So now that we know
a little bit about the story, I
was going to walk you through
the activities and how they
relate tp that story. But first,
I would like to give a shout out
to someone who's not here
tonight. The activities were
developed by Becca and myself
but also by Terry,(phn) a former
kindergarten teacher and a
longtime elementary school globe
collaborator. And his activities
went through the same review
process that I described before.
So they were reviewed by
educators and scientists and
field tested in the process. So
that that first supporting idea
to help understand the
relationship between weather and
climate. the key to the story
moved from making weather
measurements on one day to
measuring snow depth and then
looking at that data over the
area that they lived which is
Boston over many years. And so
in the activity, weather as a
disclaimer can do something very
similar. But they observed
weather each day adding blocks
to a par. This is a wooden block
that has hot glued to it for
different categories. For
example, if it is cloudy and
windy one day, then students
would add two blocks, one for
wind and one for cloudy. And at
the end of the month, they would
make a graph of it to get a
general sense of what the
weather was like overall that
month. And they do this for each
month of the school year and
learn that there are some
patterns, especially if they
live in a climate that has that
strong regional changes. So this
is not averaging of 30 years of
weather measurement. It's
typical for climate data. But
it's the first step toward
understanding the concept that
once we generalize weather, we
can understand climate. SO the
second part of this activity,
students consider the different
regional climates of the two
places where the globe kids in
the story traveled. They went
to Greenland and they went to
the Maldvies, a polar climate
and a tropical climate. SO they
used this diagram and decide
what they would bring to each
place. And what they would like
to bring to both place
explaining their answers on this
activity sheet. So on the right
there is an excerpt from
someone's activity sheet. And
this kid would bring a camera to
both Greenland and the Maldvies
because they are such cool stuff
to take pictures of in those
places. But the world is really
more for Greenland. So feedback
from the field test teachers, I
mentioned it before but it was
so helpful in refining the
details Of this activity and let
us know that this was in fact a
helpful way to get students to
understand the difference
between weather and climate. So
here is a quote from one of our
field teachers that students
learned the difference between
weather and climate. Only two
people knew before we started
and now, almost everyone can
explain it accurately which I
think, I'd love it if the
general population could do the
same thing. So for the second
idea, we wanted to emphasize
causes and effects to help
students use a simple model to
understand the impacts of sea
level rise, a big idea. This
supporting idea was that changes
in climate in one place can have
impacts in another place. And
so, there is an abstract quality
to this. But we wanted to help
make it more P-2. So in
the story, we learned that
melting ice causes sea level to
rise and
that affects places very far
away. So in the activities,
students discuss causes and
effects that were described in
the story. They considered what
caused coastal flooding in the
Maldives, sea level rise and
then, what caused that sea level
rise, melting ice which is
generalized because it's also an
extension of sea water. But
that's too advanced for this age
range. And then, what caused the
sea level to rise which is the
former temperature so the ice
could melt which is w armer
temperatures. So after they
reviewed that cause, they make a
model of a coastal community in
a plastic box. And then they
make predictions about what
would flood in their communities
if the sea level rises, What's
vulnerable in their box. And so
in this activity and in this
box, we have some plato making
the land surface with some sand
on top of it. We use little
houses and hotels from a
monopoly set. You can use legos
for this little wild are going
and tissue communities. There
are pipe cleaners in there for
vegetation, that sort of thing.
And so they make predictions
about what a small amount of sea
level rise with impact, what a
medium amount, and what a large
amount, what kind of effect it
would have. And then they
consider how they would modify
their community to keep people
safe. But there is some quotes
based on that activity. One
teacher said I liked how I was
able to get the student thinking
on different aspects of cause
and effect. And then another
teacher mentions keep working to
make improvements in their
community. We didn't start out
trying to make an engineering
activity but this actually
involves a bit of engineering
once you get to the part of the
the activity about adapting to
sea level rise. And so it was
nice to hear that that was
effective. Now, the third
activity is based on the
supporting idea that people are
part of the problem when it
comes to climate change but also
very important to the solution.
And in the book, kids monitor
their climate and they developed
solutions to help stop climate
change and then they shared
their ideas with friends around
the world through a globe
virtual symposium. And then in
the activity, the first part of
the activity, kids explored
graphics to learn how an
increase in greenhouse gases is
causing climate to change. And
this graphic is an elementary
version of a graphic that's in a
climate exhibit. So we need a
version that would be
approachable to young kids. And
then because how understanding
our actions releasing greenhouse
gases is important, but younger
kids have a desire to be
helpful. SO we really wanted to
focus this activity on
solutions. And so kids apply
what they know about greenhouse
gases to how they can help. And
that's the focus of this
activity. They use a carbon
calculate on line. We didn't
make these up. We have some
suggestions in the activity, the
ones that are really student
friendly,
elementary friendly. And then,
they estimate greenhouse gases
they are emitting and they
develop ideas for how their home
school or community can reduce
emissions. And some feedback
about that activity, when
teachers said they liked how
this was a nice activity, that
he connected it all together.
And I really loved the comment
from the student saying they
found a land lock area. One of
the questions we had as a team
as we were developing was
whether kids who are not from
coastal areas would be -- would
resonate with the idea of sea
level rise and impacts on coast
lines. And this quote from a
third grade student kind of gave
us some hope in that regard but
they got to learn that even
though they were land locked,
their choices affect the rest of
the world. So if you would like
to find the PBS storybook and
activities and all the other
elementary globe learning
resources, please head to
Globe.gov/elementaryglobe or
you can find the elementary on
the globe resources in the globe
section from the menu of the
globe program web site. And each
learning module is a storybook
in activity is linked from the
left side of the screen. You can
see that the climate module is
highlighted there. So if you
click on that, you can download
the PDF storybook from here and
if you would like to find the
learning activities, please
click on the link on the left,
and download. All of these
resources are free to you
available on line. ,so on behalf
of all of us,
thanks for joining us this
evening and I hope we have time
for questions.