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Hot topic for February 2000
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This
Hot Topic was written by Tony Lynch of Helensvale State High School in
Queensland.
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MESSAGE
FROM TONY
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"I
would be pleased for you to publish details of our Greenhouse Effect
project on your (excellent) TKI site. The more we can share actual
teaching/learning experiences using the internet, the more valuable
this resource will become. Acknowledgement would be appreciated
as I would be interested in any feedback.
Shortly
I hope to put a review of the 1999 Science Process & Technology
course on a website ...just to show how the course was organised.
In particular, there will be some details about the other main project:
Genetically Modified Organisms.
Good
Luck with the TKI education portal,
Regards,
Tony Lynch, Helensvale SHS Qld,"
tlynch@3dnet.com.au
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Last year we introduced an elective year 10 project science subject,
primarily to:
- bridge the gap between junior and senior science competencies at various
science processes
- develop research techniques and written communication skills
- make science relevant by examining some current environmental/global
issues, from a social/ethical as well as scientific point of view
- develop some IT skills in the critical use of the Internet
One of the projects was on the Greenhouse Effect. While the topic was
not very original, the intention was to question the assumptions upon
which it was based. After some discussions to find out what the students
knew, I gave the class a couple of web sites to start with, to nail down
specific answers to questions like:
- what has been the increase in world temperature this century? Has
it steadily increased?
- how are the temperatures recorded? What is the reliability of the
different systems?
- how is/was CO2 measured? What is the reliability of different techniques?
- what are other possible causes of global warming, such as the influence
of solar cycle?
- what were the causes of minor/major ice ages? Are we coming out of
a minor ice age now?
- is this climate change part of a natural cycle? (For instance, Greenland
was actually green 1000 years ago)
Ultimately, students had to present referenced arguments to support and
refute some of the media claims about the Greenhouse Effect.
The sites
I can recommend the following site as a good starting point to challenge
some of the popular Greenhouse myths: www.vision.net.au/~daly/.
John Daly (a Tasmanian meteorologist) has assembled quite an array of
very interesting data, with links to like-minded scientists, which will
get students thinking more deeply about the topic.
Some other links:
- www.abc.net.au/science/earth/climate/uncertain.htm
Greenhouse and the Science of Uncertainty site.
- www.sciam.com Scientific American
site. Go to "Feature Articles", then "Explorations",
for various articles including The Rising Seas, The Coming Climate.
- www.science.org.au/nova/
Australian Academy of Science site. Check the list of topics, including
Enhanced Greenhouse Effect.
- www.csiro.au/news/issues/cm97.htm.
Dr Chris Mitchell’s site about "Science, Kyoto [Climate Conference]
and Climate Change".
- www.greenhouse.gov.au/
Australian Greenhouse Office site. Offers a government perspective.
- www.ncdc.noaa.gov/ol/climate/globalwarming.html
United States National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration site.
This was certainly an interesting exercise in using the Net to develop
critical thinking skills in a science context. We never could have covered
this ground in this breadth and depth using textbooks. Students said
they got a lot out of it. A couple even admitted they enjoyed it! I
tried to show science not as an immutable body of truths that's been
around forever, but as a dynamic and evolving collection of hypotheses
and theories subject to data collection techniques and differing interpretations
of that data.
Finally, here is an interesting "power of experience" exercise
to set the Global Health and Ecology Group scene. Get two identical
large softdrink bottles. Bore a hole into the lids, just big enough
to fit a datalogger probe (or thermometer). Have air only in one bottle
and fill the other with CO2 . Seal the lids on, note the initial temperatures
and place them both in the sun for about 15 minutes. Ask the students
to predict which will be hotter. No prizes for guessing which one they
picked, but there were surprises at the result, prompting further questioning
and refining of the experiment. Check it out if you're that way inclined!
New Zealand Curriculum links
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