| Section |
Learning Outcomes |
| Section 1 |
- Understand the significance of growth rings in trees as indicators of environmental change.
- Understand the significance of ice cores from glaciers as indicators of environmental change.
- Investigate and understand the significance of geologic sediments as indicators of environmental change.
- Examine the significance of glacial sediments and landforms as evidence for climate change.
- Investigate and understand the significance of fossil pollen as evidence for climate change.
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| Section 2 |
- Understand that Earth has an axial tilt of about 23.5°.
- Use a globe to model the seasons on Earth.
- Investigate and understand the cause of the seasons in relation to the axial tilt of Earth.
- Understand that the shape of Earth’s orbit around the Sun is an ellipse, and that this shape influences climate.
- Understand that insolation to Earth varies as the inverse square of the distance to the Sun.
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| Section 3 |
- Model present and ancient landmasses and oceans to determine current flow.
- Explain how ocean currents affect regional and global climate.
- Understand how ocean currents are affected by Earth’s moving plates.
- Understand the relationship between climate and Earth processes, such as moving plates, mountain building, and weathering.
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Section 4 |
- Compare data to understand the relationship of carbon dioxide to global temperature.
- Evaluate given data to draw a conclusion.
- Recognize a pattern of graphed information in order to predict future temperature.
- Understand some of the causes of climate change.
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Section 5 |
- Estimate, using maps, how much ice was contained in the Pleistocene ice sheet.
- Use the estimate to calculate how much lower sea level was during the Pleistocene Epoch.
- Estimate the volume of ice in the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets, and calculate how much sea level would rise if they were to melt completely.
- Determine whether sea-level changes would affect your community.
- Understand the mechanics of postglacial rebound and how it impacts sea level.
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Section 6 |
- Model sea-level changes using a stream table.
- Evaluate the uses and limitations of this type of model in Earth science.
- Describe features of a coastal landscape during a time of rising sea level.
- Describe features of a coastal landscape during a time of falling sea level.
- Determine how your community’s landscape would be affected by rising and falling sea levels.
- Describe ways that sea-level changes have affected human history.
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Section 7 |
- Brainstorm the ways that climate change might influence Earth’s spheres.
- List ways that global warming might affect your community.
- Design an experiment on paper to test your ideas.
- Explain some of the effects of global warming that computer models of global climate have predicted.
- Understand positive and negative feedback loops and their relationship to climate change.
- Evaluate and understand the limitations of models in studying climate change through time.
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