Lab-Aids® Climate Change: Earth’s Changing Atmosphere

Lab-Aids Climate Change: Earth’s Changing Atmosphere

In the first part of this activity, students analyze and interpret data related to changes in Earth’s atmosphere over time. Students chronologically arrange cards describing the relative amounts of carbon dioxide and oxygen gases in the atmosphere at different times in Earth’s history and the role of living organisms in determining the composition of the atmosphere. They see that Earth’s atmosphere has changed dramatically over geologic time and learn how human activity is causing small but significant changes to the modern atmosphere. In the second part of the activity, students use a computer simulation (or cards) to analyze data from the past 100 years to investigate the causes of current global warming. They ask data-driven questions to figure out what the evidence does and does not indicate and to examine the influence of both natural and human-related factors. Designed to be used with 32 students per class which can be broken down into groups of 4 and 2.