It's Really Heating Up in Here!
Student teams model the Earth's greenhouse effect using modeling clay, ice chunks, water, aluminum pie tins and plastic wrap. They observe and record what happens in this closed environment and discuss the implications of global warming theory for engineers, themselves and the Earth.
Students examine the impacts of global warmingCopyright 2011 Frits Ahlefeldt, Wikimedia Commons https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Stop-Global-warming_spelled_by_small_penguins.jpg
Global warming is becoming an increasing concern as we learn more about the weather disasters and environmental effects that may result. Some engineers are designing new technologies to reduce the production of greenhouse gases. Other engineers are designing technologies to help warn people of impending disasters. This includes remote sensing instruments in satellites, oceans and the Earth that gather data used predict the presence and magnitude of tropical storms, earthquakes, and weather extremes such as droughts and flooding.
After this activity, students should be able to:
- Build a simple model to recreate the greenhouse effect.
- Record observations of global warming during experiments.
- Compare their model environment with their environment.
- Describe how global warming may impact an engineer's decisions, their own lives and the Earth.
- Discuss their roles as citizens in the reduction of greenhouse gases.