Teachers Britt Fullerton and Cecilia Schreyer from the Irvine Unified School District blow bubbles into a glass to increase CO₂ contents and acidity.

Birch Aquarium Teams up with Sally Ride Science to Educate Teachers About Climate Change

Workshop will help teachers educate their students on climate science

A group of teachers huddled March 1 in the Birch Aquarium at Scripps' climate change exhibit, trying to decide what they would do to curb global warming. Should they build more nuclear power plants? Should they require higher fuel efficiency standards for cars? Should they increase the use of solar power?

Before making up their minds, they checked one of the aquarium's exhibits that lists the pros and cons for each option. Judith Coats, the aquarium's school programs coordinator, then pointed out that they could engage their students in a similar discussion in the classroom.

The exercise was part of the new Climate Change Institute for Educators, which was held at the aquarium for the first time. Several teachers said the workshop will allow them to talk to their students about climate science with more authority.

"I think that it's relevant and important for us to be preparing children for the future they're going to face," said Tony Ricchiuti, a seventh-grade teacher in the Escondido Union School District.

The one-day workshop aimed to provide participants with a good understanding of cutting-edge climate research and ideas on how to translate their new-found knowledge into hands-on activities for students. Teachers heard from several scientists, including Richard Somerville, a researcher at UCSD's Scripps Institution of Oceanography and one of the lead authors on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which shared the Nobel Peace Prize with former Vice President Al Gore last year.

Reaching out to teachers is the best way to make an impact in the classroom, said Nigella Hillgarth, the aquarium's executive director. The Climate Change Institute is the result of a new partnership between the Birch Aquarium at Scripps and Sally Ride Science. The aquarium and UCSD's Scripps Institution of Oceanography contributed their extensive knowledge of climate change, she said. Ride's company offered up its expertise in running workshops for teachers. Hillgarth also said she hopes the partnership will lead to more workshops later this year. "It's a wonderful synergy," she said.

In all, 50 teachers attended the institute. They listened intently as Somerville led them through an overview of climate science, from a definition of the greenhouse effect to a summary of the IPCC's projections. Sea levels will rise anywhere from 8 inches to 2 feet, and perhaps more, in the 21st century, he said. But scientists still don't know how likely ice sheets are to destabilize and melt suddenly, Somerville pointed out. Over the next 20 years, scientists expect warming to continue, to the tune of 0.35 degrees Fahrenheit per decade, he added.

Birch Aquarium at Scripps program coordinator Judith Coats (right) talks to teachers Saturday. "The warming is ubiquitous," he said. "It occurs everywhere, over land, over sea." Somerville also let teachers in on some of the discussions that took place while the IPCC was preparing its latest report. One delegate objected to using the word "unequivocal" in the sentence "Warming of the climate system is now unequivocal." The word, the delegate said, wouldn't translate in French. The French delegate stood up to object, saying it would translate very well. Somerville sought to reassure teachers about the integrity of the process, from a scientific standpoint.

"I can say truthfully that no politics were involved," he said. "Everybody's charge was scientific integrity."

He also dwelled on some of the perhaps lesser-known consequences of global warming. For example, the Gulf Stream is likely to slow down. The oceans also will become more acidic.

After Somerville's talk, Birch Aquarium and Sally Ride Science staff members offered some hands-on tools to illustrate in the classroom global warming's consequences. For one demonstration, Karen Flammer, a research physicist at UCSD and co-founder and senior vice president at Sally Ride Science, passed around glasses of tap water. Coats, the aquarium coordinator, distributed Ph strips, used to test acidity. Teachers used one strip to test the water's acidity at the beginning of the experiment. Then they used plastic straws to blow bubbles into the water, effectively increasing the amount of CO₂ it contained. They tested acidity again and most observed it had indeed increased. This is a good way to show why an increase in CO₂ emissions will lead to more acidic oceans, Flammer said.

Teachers also visited the Birch Aquarium's climate-themed exhibit, Feeling the Heat: The Climate Challenge. Coats took them to one display, showing different measures that would help curb carbon emissions. Left unchecked, emissions will double in the next 50 years, to 14 billion tons per year, the exhibit said. Teachers had to pick seven measures to bring emissions back to today's level of 7 billion tons per year. After a fair amount of debate, one group decided to install carbon-capture storage systems in power plants; switch from coal to natural gas; reduce driving by half; double fuel efficiency standards for cars; stop deforestation; and increase the use of wind and solar energy.

During a break, several teachers said they liked that many of the hands-on experiments required cheap and easy-to-find supplies. They also said it reminded them of the many ways they could teach science in the classroom. "It re-energizes you," said Gingerlily Lowe, a teacher at the Museum School, a San Diego charter school.

The Climate Change Institute for Educators is part of a new series of education programs the Birch Aquarium at Scripps launched in conjunction with its Feeling the Heat exhibit. Other programs target students in seventh- through 12th-grade. In all, the aquarium's education programs reach about 80,000 people every year, including 55,000 students that take part in school programs.

"There's nothing more important that training teachers," said Debbie Zmarzly, Birch Aquarium at Scripps program scientist and curator of the aquarium's award-winning climate change exhibit.

This story was originally published in This Week @ UCSD.

Ioana Patringenaru

April 2008