For Teachers
This curriculum guide—created especially for teachers and educators—is designed to complement Confronting Climate Change in the Gulf Coast Region: Prospects for Sustaining Our Ecological Heritage and to make its findings accessible to younger residents of the Gulf Coast states. The Guide helps transform climate change from an abstract concept to a real phenomenon with tangible effects on peoples' lives.
What You Need
The activities in the curriculum guide refer to Confronting Climate Change in the Gulf Coast Region and several associated materials. To maximize your use of these teaching materials, you'll need the following items:
- The Curriculum Guide
- The Report
- Summary of Findings for your state
- Teacher's Supplement for your state
- Gulf Sea-Level Rise fact sheet
- Gulf Fresh Water fact sheet
- Powerpoint slide collection based on the report
All these materials can be downloaded below.
About the Guide
The guide consists of 10 activities, which are closely tied to and build upon the report. The activities are backed by sound science and meet state-specific science education criteria for grades 9 to 12; the materials, however, are easily adaptable for both college and middle school. The activities highlight the real-life impacts of climate change on students' home states and familiar environments, exploring in depth the ecosystem goods and services upon which our human economy depends. The materials also emphasize practical solutions that will both mitigate future harm as well as adapt to the changes that will come.
We hope that you find these student-oriented activities both educational and engaging. The materials are made accessible for teachers by:
- Tying each activity to the state-specific content and skills standards set by the states of Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas as required for grades 9-12;
- Providing sufficient background information and resources for teachers to feel comfortable teaching this complex, and frequently controversial, topic; and
- Offering several alternatives and/or extensions to each activity to facilitate their application in varying teaching contexts—e.g. class size, available resources, grade level, skill level, subject matter, etc.
The Union of Concerned Scientists has additional materials available for teachers that help illustrate the impacts of climate change. Please visit the links below for more information.
Ordering Information
If you are having difficulties downloading the materials, you may place an order for a CD-ROM or a set of paper copies. Please contact Jason Mathers at ssi@ucsusa.org or at (617) 547-5552 for more information.
Feedback
We would appreciate hearing your feedback on the report and teaching materials, and are happy to answer any questions you may have. Once you have used our curriculum materials, please revisit our site and provide us with some feeback via our Feedback Form.
