iLab: Our Choice – Air Pollution and Climate Change. & Ted Talks ... “Our Choice
”. You will be greeted by Al Gore (who wrote the book this app is based on).
Name/Date/Period iLab: Our Choice – Air Pollution and Climate Change & Ted Talks – Discovering Ancient Climates in Ocean and Ice iPad use: You are a brilliant student. You know how to do all sorts of crazy stuff on an iPad like change the wallpaper, check your twitter account and download Angry Birds. Please resist doing those things, because today we are doing a lab specifically with the apps called “Our Choice” and “Ted”. When you get your iPad, please go directly to the app. Thank you for your cooperation. Open the app “Our Choice”. You will be greeted by Al Gore (who wrote the book this app is based on). If you are instead greeted by a spinning Earth, press the counter-clockwise arrow in the lower left corner. Touch anywhere on the screen (you can even poke Al in the eye!) and press “skip welcome.” This will take you to a tutorial which is very helpful. Upon completing the tutorial, touch the screen again to “skip titles”. Advance to Chapter One – What Goes Up Must Come Down, and expand the first page to full screen. As you read the chapter, answer the following questions. Subheading: Our Planet Is In Peril Graphic: The Sources of Global Warming
1. List the six families of air pollutants and their respective percentage contribution to global warming. 2. What is the largest source of CO2 emissions? 3. Compare the potency of CO2 and CH4. 4. What is “black carbon”? 5. What are “VOCs” and what are they used for? Subheading: Carbon Dioxide
6. What is the good news and bad news about CO2? Subheading: Methane Movie: What Goes Up: Greenhouse Gases
7. List four of the greenhouse gas sources described in the movie. Subheading: Black Carbon
8. The burning of biomass is concentrated in what three areas? Movie: The Menace of the Brown Cloud
9. What is the annual cost, in dollars and human lives, of the atmospheric brown cloud? Subheading: A Reflective Problem Graphic: Albedo - The Earth’s Reflectivity
10. Compare and contrast the albedo of the various surfaces at sea. 11. Compare and contrast the albedo of the various surfaces on land. 12. In general, what types of surfaces (sea, sky, city and land) have a higher albedo? Movie: Cleaning the Air after the Great Smog of 1952
13. What was the cause of the Great Smog of 1952? Subheading: Halocarbons
14. What is the Montreal Protocol? Subheading: Carbon Monoxide, VOCs, and Nitrous Oxide
15. Where does the majority of nitrous-oxide emissions come from? Advance to Chapter Nine - Forests, and expand the yellow page toward the end called “The Keeling Curve” Movie: The Keeling Curve
16. Explain where and how Keeling measured atmospheric CO2 and what the results were.
Open the app “TED” and search for the talk by Rob Dunbar called “Discovering Ancient Climates in Oceans and Ice”. If this app is unavailable, you can also access the video at http://www.ted.com/talks/rob_dunbar.html. Watch the video (18min) and answer the following questions. 17. What frightens Rob most about the effects of climate change on the ocean? 18. At the Copenhagen Summit in 2009, which countries were most concerned about the effect of climate change on oceans? 19. Rob says there is compelling evidence that we should try to get CO2 levels down to what level? 20. What are some natural factors that influence climate? 21. What are some human factors that influence climate? 22. How has Rob studied climate in the Earth’s past? 23. What part of Antarctica are scientists most worried about melting? 24. When studying the sediments of the ocean floor in Antarctica, how did the scientists know when there was ice over the sediments and when there was water over the sediments? 25. What caused these variations in ice cover in the Earth’s past? 26. How are corals in the Galapagos affected by climate change? 27. How do scientists use coral to determine climate in the Earth’s past? 28. What was the conclusion of the analysis of coral climate data? 29. What organisms are being affected by ocean acidification? 30. How might humans be affected by these changes to the ocean environment? (not directly from video)
