Teaching the Global Energy Balance : A Complementary Computational and Hands-On Gamified Activity (Journal Article)

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Abstract: Over the past several decades, secondary schools and institutions of higher education have increased the number of and frequency with which they offer climate change and sustainability-themed courses and research opportunities driven by growing student interest. In the secondary education setting, only a third of the instructors teaching these classes have any formal training in this discipline, while some university science faculty have expressed varying degrees of comfort with teaching this subject. Here, we propose a new, easily adaptable class activity for both high school and college-level instructors to teach one of the most fundamental topics in climate science: the global energy balance and how it affects Earth’s average global temperature.8 This highly interactive activity has been implemented in both lecture- and lab-based settings at two different universities over the past six years and refined, based on student feedback, with each iteration. The complementary approach of this activity, which uses both a simple computer model and an experimental game, makes it appropriate for students who do not have a background in the sciences (particularly physics), which is the primary demographic of high school and intro-level college courses.