This activity proceeds as follows:

1. Students read a small amount of background about climate, ice cores, and Vostok Lake

2. Students choose one of two ways to graph 400,000 years of data from the Vostok Lake Ice Cores

3. Students generate a proper graph, or graphs, of the data

4. Students analyze trends on the graph

5. Students answer questions about the potential impacts of climate change

6. I included a link to a short video that serves as a great visual, giving students an idea of how scientists live, and collect data, as they live in Antarctica seasonally.

A. NEXT GENERATION SCIENCE STANDARDS HEREIN

DCI’s: ESS2.D Weather and Climate

ESS3: Earth and Human Activity

Cross Cutting Concepts: Patterns, Cause and Effect, Systems and System Models, Scale, Proportion, and Quantity, Stability and Change

Scientific and Engineering Practices:

Analyzing and Interpreting Data

Obtaining, Evaluating, and Communicating Information

Using Mathematic and Computation Thinking

B. SUGGESTED USES

Prior Knowledge: This lesson is designed to be an introduction to climate change, so no specific priori knowledge is required on the science. However, students are required to produce a graph. I don’t include directions on graphing. It is assumed that students know they must have even increments, axes titles and units, etc. I find it to be a good way to disarm students who are skeptical/deniers of climate change science, since it spells out where the data came from, and objective marches students to the conclusion with the raw data.

Materials and Setup: All you need for this activity is the printout and writing utensils. I’ve provided graph paper.

Time Frame/Implementation: This activity can take students a while. There are a lot of data points to graph. Some students require the entire period and then finish it for homework.

I recommend showing this video either the last 10-15 minute of class, or the following period:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TDOQIkiIL9Q&feature=related