Climate School
What are the basic things an informed, college-educated person should understand about the science and interpretation of data associated with global warming / climate change? Our Intro Biology text has a few bits and pieces, but not enough. This is one of those major issues I'd like for us to dig into a bit deeper.
And through this discussion, a lot of basic concepts can be discussed and terms defined, embedded seamlessly in an extremely relevant real-life matter today's young people will inevitably face.
This full 24-part online course on the subject from The California Space Institute, is authored by a scientist from Scripps Institute of Oceanography. It seems to be about the right level of readability and scientific sophistication for college freshmen, without being dumbed down or simplistic. I plan to work through it to give me more breadth and depth on the subject. It's not one that is going to simply go away in my lifetime, or my children's, or yours.
If anybody has background info on Calspace or Scripps that would indicate leanings or biases on this matter, let me hear from you.
Comments
I have been interested in climate classifications that relate to the dynamics of the atmosphere. The traditional koppen measures vegetation groupings
Posted by: newperson | September 19, 2005 6:56 AM
Hi Fred,
I read the first and second Calspace online courses and found them to be quite informative.
The second course, Climate Change 2: Past and Future was most informative and seemed to be mostly information with a minimum of conclusions.
The URL is: http://calspace.ucsd.edu/virtualmuseum/climatechange2/cc2syllabus.shtml
I think this is a resource that will give your students a lot to work with.
Posted by: David St Lawrence | September 20, 2005 7:38 PM
Hi Fred
This subject has been my particular passion since my undergraduate days back in the 60's. I've read hundreds of books, debated lots of deniers, and used scads of electrons to send my strongly felt opinions about this all over the web.
The website seems to be a well done basic college level intro to the topics. The instructor is more cautious than I would be about attributing changes to human activity, but then I'm a frightened old grouch and a polemicist and he's a prof.
Posted by: fredR | September 23, 2005 12:53 AM