This course is designed in such a way that all teachers can easily participate in it, focusing especially on those who are interested in astronomy but never had the opportunity to learn more about it. This course is also great for those teachers who have limited background information about space sciences and do not feel comfortable when communicating basic information about the Earth, its properties and its place in the Universe to their students.

By joining this course, you will enhance your basic knowledge about the Earth, its properties, its uniqueness and fragility and how to teach about these topics. The course addresses misconceptions about the connection between space sciences and astronomy with chemistry, biology, geography and Earth sciences. You will learn and practice with fun educational activities about weather, climate and the Earth, how to use these activities at school and/or at home, raise awareness about different space missions and space careers, and strengthen social responsibility in relation to climate change.

Create Inquiry Learning Spaces and give your students the experience of doing science.

Test done

Your result in the test was: 100%

You have passed the test.

Your answers

Climate is unexpected and unpredictable phenomenon in a climate zone ones live in:

True

False

The only one natural resource people should be concerned about when speaking about climate change is water because it is the main source of life on Earth:

True

False

Women:

are unrelated to science

can be as successful as their men colleagues in the same field of science

are much less motivated than men to do science

To strive for gender balance in your science classroom, one thing you can do is to let boys and girls manipulate STEM equipment equally:

True

False

A common gender stereotype is that women get assigned to active and productive roles and men get assigned passive and supportive roles.

True

False

Meteorologists acquire, process and interpret data from instruments on land, at sea, in the sky and in space for use in weather forecasting and climate monitoring.

True

False

For those of you who want to teach about gender balance in an experiential way, we propose you check out this game from the Red Cross / Red Crescent Climate Centre.

This game is “a participatory activity to support experiential learning and dialogue on the differential vulnerability of women and men facing climate variability and change. Players first take on the role of subsistence farmers facing changing risks -- then ‘walk in the shoes’ of a specific gender role. Experiencing the consequences of individual and collective decisions, rich discussions emerge, as do winners and losers.”

After learning the facts about climate change and global warming, students can ask “Why should we care?” The consequences of global warming can be dramatic to many countries, whole continents and the planet in general, and it should be of a great concern of every person. Simple tips you cam give to children to help against global warming are: saving electricity, recycling and helping plant trees! Here is the article, which can inspire you to talk to students why we should all care about climate change.

There are lots of actions taken around the world to draw attention to change of climate.

We would like to inform you about the initiative called Climathon, which is a global 24-hour climate change hackathon. It will take place simultaneously in major cities around the world on 27 October 2017. Climathon attracts innovators, entrepreneurs, students and professionals to create innovative solutions to cities climate challenges.

 

By 2017, which is the third year of initiative’s operation, the Climathon movement has grown tremendously, encouraging more innovators across the globe to drive climate action. Climathon 2016 took place in 59 cities across 6 continents, creating over 2,330 ideas and reaching 16.8 million people worldwide.

Climate-KIC - Europe's largest public-private innovation partnership focused on climate change - provides support to the host organisations with a website for each Climathon city, logistics guidance, marketing and communication packages, and regular support calls. Excellent coverage is guaranteed through tweets and articles of the event.

Visualisation tools and apps for students

The European Space Agency (ESA) provides two extra tools we would like to feature. The first one, Climate from Space, is a visualization tool available as an app. This tool “lets you take a closer look at visualisations of climate data being produced through the European Space Agency's Climate Change Initiative (CCI) programme. In the data viewer, see the changes through time of sea surface temperature, the ice sheets, sea level, sea ice, carbon dioxide, soil moisture and many more ». You can see the full information and how to access the app, here. 

Another good resource is the ESA Earth online website where you can access information about all of ESA’s Earth monitoring activities including earth-observing data.