Project Archive: Conversations with the Earth

This is a snapshot of project information archived on 2 September 2022. Please contact the project team for most recent updates.

Conversations with the Earth

Subject: Environment & Earth Sciences

Book Language: English

Audience: Non-STEM college students who want to understand climate change and what to do about it

Book Cover: Rebus.jpeg - Google Drive

Created date: February 11, 2022

Updated date: March 17, 2022

Target Release Date: 2022-12-31

License:

  • Attribution
  • Non-Commercial
  • Share Alike

Needs:

  • Lead Editors
  • Proofreaders

Short Description:

Is one generation responsible for leaving a habitable climate for the next? This course is all about helping you and your students address that question, through

a steely-eyed equity lens.

Human actions are fundamentally altering the processes which have shaped Earth’s climate over its 4.5 billion-year history. In the first part of the course, students consider the responsibility that each generation has to leave a habitable climate for the next and, in the second part, they examine the earth system, how that system evolved over time, and how human activities are rapidly changing the climate in which the human species flourished.

Our equity-based approach includes:

Access (reducing barriers that prevent equitable access to education), Community and connection (facilitating connections across classrooms, campuses, communities) and Ownership (protecting agency and ownership of one’s own learning experiences).

Outline

Conversations With the Earth

Part 1: Loomings

1 Climate and Change

2 Climate and the Anthroposphere

3 Energy, Heat, Temperature and Light

4 Earth’s Many Temperatures: From the Greenhouse Effect to Zonal Averages

Part 2: Earth Systems

6 The Geosphere & Plate Tectonics

7 The Atmosphere

8 The Hydrosphere

9 The Biosphere and life: its definition, evolution and repercussions

10 The Cryosphere

11 Uniting the Spheres: Carbon & the Carbon Cycle

12 Climate regulation and variability over geologic time

13 Climate regulations and variations: Quaternary Glaciations and the past 2.8 My.

Part 3: Anthroposphere

14 The Anthropocene: From Agriculture to fossil fuels

15 The Holocene: Understanding “normal” climate & its variations.

16 Recent Climate Change I: Observations

17 RCG II: Driving Forces & Impacts

18 RCG III: Mitigation & Adaptation

19 RCG IV: What can one person, city do?

Resources

Participants