Focus the Nation

I attended the presentation entitled "Global Warming – The Clock is Ticking." I found that I did not really learn anything from the presentation. The beginning of the talk came across as being the same as any other global warming speach. The started by saying this is what we know will happen if we do not change our ways, and then proceeded to show pictures of Manhattan, Florida, and Portland underwater. The second part of the presentation was slightly better because they actually focused on some stuff that we could do to help slow down global warming. I liked that they added this part since the movie An Inconvenient Truth. I always felt that that movie was really lacking because it said that there was a problem but gave no plans for correcting the problem. I did learn a few things from the presentation
1) There was a mini-ice age about 1300 years ago where the world tempurature dropped 4 degrees and civilization was not wiped out.
2) If ice on land melts then the ocean levels will go up but if ice already in the water melts then ocean levels will stay the same.
3) When ice melts and more water is opened up the melting process intensifies because the water conducts heat better than the ice.

In my classroom I plan to use "scrap" paper to do most of the in class work. I will ask the computer center to provide me with paper that people print on that they never use. I could also do a project where the students figure out how much energy is harnessed using water, wind, solar etc. This would use a knowledge of numbers and conversions as well as helping teach the students about renewable energy.