Final Project

Weather/Climate Unit - Earth's Atmosphere

Introduction: This project is designed to help students acquire knowledge about the atmosphere that will assist them in their subsequent study of weather and climate. Included are online and digital activities that students will complete individually and as a class. It is presented in a facilitator-friendly format which includes content knowledge and activities. It will be made available to students via a class website on a weekly schedule.

Content Objectives:

• Compare the properties of the ocean to that of the atmosphere.
• Explain the development of Earth’s atmosphere and the influence of early life on the atmosphere.
• Discuss the composition of the Earth’s atmosphere.
• Explain how temperature and pressure change with altitude.
• Describe the layers of the Earth’s atmosphere.
• Discuss the production and importance of ozone in the atmosphere & possible effects of losing it.
• Describe what happens to radiation that reaches the Earth.
• Summarize and give examples of the processes of radiation, conduction,  and convection.
• Explain how the greenhouse effect might contribute to global warming.
• Explain the relationship between air pressure and wind direction.
• Describe the global patterns of wind.
• Explain the causes of local wind patterns.
• Describe the major types of air pollution and their causes.
• Explain how air pollution can affect human health, even for those far removed from the source.
• Explain how air pollution can be reduced.

Activities/Assignments to be Completed: 
Complete all Online Activities
View all Online Media
Finish all Written/Digital Assignments
     Questions Ozone Layer
     Questions Energy Transfer
     Make a Table Showing the Characteristics of Primary & Secondary Pollutants
     Essay Acid Precipitation
Finish all Labeled Diagrams
     Layers of the Atmosphere
     Major Pressure and Wind Belts
     Four Different Types of Local Winds
Complete Preview to Review - include term, definition, & image with URL

Scope and Sequence:

Introduction

NASA Composite Satellite Image of North America

Reveal Earthʼs Atmosphere  Compares properties of oceans with that of the atmosphere - “ocean of air above us” (e.g. eddies, waves, pressure, fluid, & surfing).

NASA Weather Satellite IR Pictures 

Origin of Atmosphere

TD Life Before Oxygen

• early earth volcanoes spewed carbon dioxide and water
• photosynthetic cyanobacteria used CO2 and water and produced oxygen as a byproduct
• oxygen and ozone in atmosphere allowed other life forms to evolve
• oxygen was poisonous to other primitive organisms present; which either died or hid in places that oxygen couldn’t get to them, like volcanic vents.
• these life forms live there still and can be studied to help us understand that part of earth history

ACTIVITY:    Vocabulary (What do you already know or can find without assistance?) Create a three column table which includes term, definition, and an image with URL for each term.
atmosphere, air pressure, wind, altitude, ozone, radiation, conduction, convection, energy budget, greenhouse effect, global warming, Coriolis effect, primary pollutants, secondary pollutants, and acid precipitation 

Composition of Atmosphere

Composition of Earth's Atmosphere

Layers of the Atmosphere - Atmospheric gases (fluid like ocean) are layered due to different temperatures & densities.

TD Vertical Structure of the Atmosphere (interactive)

• Pressure and density of atmosphere decreases with increasing distance from earth.
• Temperature variations are not as consistent but are used to define the four atmospheric layers.
• The four layers are: Troposphere, Stratosphere, Mesosphere, and Thermosphere.

Layers of Earth's Atmosphere

Layers of Earth's Atmosphere 3D

  
Air Pressure - Pressure (force / unit area) exerted by air on objects on earth.

• Air Pressure and Altitude
• Lower air pressure higher in atmosphere, since there’s less air overhead.
• Higher air pressure lower in atmosphere, since there’s more air overhead.
• Air Pressure and Weather
• Low Pressure = cloudy/rain (air is rising, cooling, and condensing to form clouds/rain)
• High Pressure = clear/sunny (air is sinking, warming and drying out)
• Air moves from areas of high pressure to areas of low pressure causing winds

Digital Demonstration Making ice by boiling water Lowering the pressure causes the water to boil below 100°C, the heat for boiling comes from the water so it cools and freeze.

ACTIVITY:    DRAW AND LABEL a diagram that shows the four major layers of the earth’s atmosphere, include altitude, temperature, pressure and other important characteristics (location of weather, ozone, etc.)
  

Ozone Layer

 
ACTIVITY: Watch A Hole in the Sky and Ozone Hole
While Watching, ANSWER Questions/ADD Ozone Layer to Layers of the Atmosphere Diagram

1. Where is ozone located?
2. What function does it serve?
3. How does ozone form?
4. Why does ozone interact so easily with other elements/molecules?
5. What is the ozone loss sequence called?
6. Which element/compound seems to have caused a shift in the amount of ozone?
7. What might be the impact of a loss of ozone in the atmosphere?

Review Water Cycle (sublimation, transpiration, freezing, melting, evaporation, & condensation)

Observe a Water Drop Travel through the Water Cycle

Energy Transfer

ACTIVITY:  Energy Transfer While Interacting Online, ANSWER Questions, and Include Five (5) Images with URLs

1. Where does heat always move from and to?
2. What is the form of energy transferred by a electromagnetic waves?
3. What does conduction cause atoms to do when energy is transferred directly?
4. Which is the primary method of heat transfer through gases and liquids?
5. Give two examples for each of the three types of energy transfer (3 x 2 = 6 total)  

Earth’s Energy Budget (Convection driven evaporation-condensation system is called the latent heat flux of energy budget)

Annual Mean Global Energy Balance

Energy can be used to change temperature or change state but not both simultaneously

Global Warming (introduce now, cover in more detail later) - The greenhouse effect is necessary for life on Earth BUT ..........

Race to Save the Planet Global Warming and the Greenhouse Effect

Coriolis Effect (introduce now, cover in more detail later) - apparent deflection of a freely moving object (not attached like atmosphere, ocean water or a missile) caused by rotation of earth under said object (to its own right in N. Hemisphere, to its own left in S. Hemisphere). But NOT in a sink or toilet, as there is not enough water.

Animation and Merry-go-round Demonstration and Not in a Sink

Earth's Major Pressure & Wind Belts

ACTIVITY:    DRAW AND LABEL a diagram of earth that shows the pressure & wind belts including: Subpolar low and Polar Front in both hemispheres, Subtropical High Pressure in both hemispheres, Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ), Polar Easterlies in both hemispheres, Westerlies in both hemispheres, Northeast Trade winds, Southeast Trade winds, and Doldrums.

Major Pressure and Wind Belts

Local Winds

READ and Use to Draw and Label:
Local and Regional Wind Systems and Sea and Land Breezes and Mountain Winds and Katabatic and Anabatic Winds  and Local Winds

ACTIVITY:    DRAW & LABEL at least four (4) diagrams showing different types of local winds.

Atmospheric Pollution


ACTIVITY:    MAKE TWO TABLES Showing the Characteristics of Primary & Secondary Pollutants. Together with students, define primary and secondary pollutants and make tables to show the characteristics & health effects of primary pollutants & secondary pollutants.

• Primary Pollutants - enter the atmosphere directly from their source
• Secondary Pollutants - form in the atmosphere from primary pollutants via chemical and photochemical reactions like smog = smoke + fog

Primary Pollutants

 Secondary Pollutants

How is London Smog different from Los Angeles Smog?


Arctic Haze Researchers from Arizona came to Alaska to look for what they thought would be clean pristine air, but found instead that the air was hazy with suspended particles carried there from far away industrial areas. Once in the Arctic it remains for a very long time. “Research suggests that Arctic haze may be mixing with clouds to trap heat, contributing to global warming.”

NASA ARCTAS (Arctic Research of the Composition of the Troposphere from Aircraft & Satellite)Long winters allow transport to continue but low light slows the breakdown of pollutants. Changes in albedo due to changing ice cover change the amount of radiation absorbed/reflected.

Acid Precipitation

• Sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide emissions from burning fossil fuels combine with water vapor in the atmosphere to form acids that fall from the sky as rain, snow, fog, sleet, hail, or dry particles.
• Often this pollution falls far from its source.
• If the land where it falls is basic (limestone bedrock) the acid is somewhat neutralized, otherwise it can cause pH levels to fall in lakes, ponds, and groundwater. 
• Damage also occurs to metal and stone structures.

Effects of Acid Precipitation

Clean Coal? and Have you Ever Seen the Rain?

ACTIVITY:    WRITE an essay describing the causes, effects, and possible solutions to the problem of acid precipitation, include 2 images with URLs.

Blogs Visited

Ian's was a site I hadn’t visited. I liked the photo on his first post but I think he must have dropped the class, because there were no other posts?

I liked Dave's background that looked like rain on a window and am wondering if that was a template or something that he added himself. I also like the idea of using the positive feedback whenever possible so that students can make important connections within processes like metabolism AND global warming.

James' page has the same drops on a window background, so I’ll look again at the templates. I’ve always wanted to visit New Zealand, so that caused my initial interest in this blog.   I liked his comments about our connectedness to the ocean (something I didn’t totally appreciate growing up in Michigan).

Cryosphere - Terrestrial Ice

Even though I considered myself fairly knowledgeable about glaciers (which I was thankful for while progressing through this module : ) I did gain new knowledge and new ways to show glacial movement including: Documenting Glacial Change, which is six pairs of pictures of Alaskan glaciers taken 100 years apart. The Vimeo of the Mendenhall Glacier and the comparison views of Alaskan Glaciers were both very cool and most certainly useful. I also needed the review of permafrost and its importance in global climate change.

Documenting Glacial Change

I particularly like the Alaska-specific examples of global climate change. Even though we live nowhere near the Arctic and especially because many of my students suffer from fairly severe parochialism and believe that their little corner of the world is actually the center of all there is (since in their limited life experience, it has been). These examples will help them see how global climate change is affecting others in their state, rather than others with whom they might never interact.

I had used the drops in a bucket activity but lost the data (which undoubtedly is still on some errant piece of paper somewhere in my files). I’m glad to have a link to a digital source, so that I can use it once again. I had never seen the 1000 ice crystals activity and will add that to my list of resources.

Stradivarius "Messiah" Violin

I also found this interesting information about the effects of climate change in the process of my research, “Antonio Stradivari, the famous violin maker, produced his instruments during the Little Ice Age. It has been proposed that the colder climate caused the wood used in his violins to be denser than in warmer periods, contributing to the tone of Stradivari's instruments.....Historian Wolfgang Behringer has linked intensive witch-hunting episodes in Europe to agricultural failures during the Little Ice Age."

I spent three weeks on the Big Island of Hawaii studying volcanology with other science teachers from the Pacific States. We visited the Mauna Loa Observatory, where CO2 in the atmosphere is measured (since it’s far and away from sources of CO2). The researcher told us that the CO2 released by our van on the way up registered on his monitors, so he knew when we would be arriving shortly thereafter. Interesting too, that they had built a lava wall uphill of the facility to divert possible volcanic flow from the active volcano, which is showing signs of inflation leading to a probable eruption (the first since 1984).

Mauna Loa Observatory

I'll be in Hawaii next week at this time, so have been checking on current volcanic activity. I'm hoping to see lava flows while there. I'm considering a visit to the observatory too (although, I haven't yet convinced my husband of the fun in that). And, of course, this will need to be when I'm not sitting on the beach sipping something from a coconut, being careful not to poke myself in the eye with the little umbrella  : )

Hawaii from Space