Discover Your Changing World with NOAA

Activity Book from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

Written and edited by Mel Goodwin, PhD, Charleston, SC
Design by Sandy Goodwin, Coastal Images Graphic Design, Mount Pleasant, SC

To see more activities, visit: oceanservice.noaa.gov/education/discoverclimate
For more about climate, visit: www.climate.gov

Introduction

Here are some big questions about our world:

• How does the sun power Earth's climate?
• How do the ocean, ice, clouds, and air affect how much of the sun's energy reaches Earth?
• How have plants, animals, and people changed Earth's climate?
• How might a changing climate affect plants, animals, and people?
• What tools do scientists use to watch the weather? How do they use that information to guess what weather and climate will be like later?

What makes someone "climate literate"? That means a person understands climate well. This person:

• Understands how Earth's climate works.
• Knows how to find true, science-based facts about climate.
• Can make smart, careful choices about things that might affect climate.

These activities will teach you about Earth's climate system. You'll learn what changes it, what happens because of those changes, and what you can do to explore, understand, and protect our Earth.

Have fun!

Table of Contents

• Activity 1: The Great Glowing Orb — Make a Solar Heat Engine
• Activity 2: The Climate Team — Make a Solar Cooker
• Activity 3: Climate Is Our Friend…Isn't It? — Make an Extinction Polyhedron
• Activity 4: Climate, Weather…What's the Difference? — Make an Electronic Temperature Sensor
• Activity 5: How Do We Know? — Make weather sensors and a home weather station
• Activity 6: I Didn't Do It…Did I? — Make Your Own Greenhouse Effect
• Activity 7: Why Should I Care? — Show how carbon dioxide makes the ocean more acidic
• Activity 8: Are You Climate Literate? — Play the Essential Principles Challenge
• Activity 9: Communicate! — Create your own message about climate change
• Activity 10: The Incredible Carbon Journey — Play the Carbon Journey Game

Climate Science Literacy means understanding how you affect climate, and how climate affects you and the people around you.

The Big Ideas About Climate Science

1. The sun is the main source of energy for Earth's climate.
2. Climate is controlled by many parts of Earth working together.
3. Life on Earth depends on climate, is shaped by climate, and affects climate too.
4. Climate changes over time and in different places. This happens naturally and because of people.
5. Scientists learn about climate by watching it closely, studying ideas, and building models (test versions to help them understand).
6. What people do affects the climate.
7. A changing climate will affect Earth and people's lives.

For more, visit: www.climate.gov

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Activity 1: The Great, Glowing Orb

Big Idea: The sun is the main source of energy for Earth's climate. (Climate Science Idea 1)

What You Will Do: Make a Solar Heat Engine

When we talk about Earth's climate, we really mean the effects of energy from the sun. This energy warms Earth's land, ocean, and air. Some places get more sun energy than others.

This heat causes strong winds and big ocean currents. Heat moves from warm places — like the Equator — to cold places — like the North and South Poles. So, some of the sun's heat energy turns into motion energy (energy of movement).

A Solar Heat Engine is something you can build that also turns the sun's heat into motion. Let's find out how!

How It Works

Many plastics shrink (get smaller) when heated. This engine uses strips of plastic attached to a spinning wheel called a flywheel. The flywheel sits on a drum that can spin on a rod called an axle.

When sunlight hits one plastic strip, it shrinks and pulls the flywheel off-center. This makes the drum spin. As it spins, another strip moves into the sunlight, and the same thing happens again. When strips move into the shadow, they cool down and stretch back out.

What You Will Need

• An adult partner
• 1 black plastic trash bag
• 2 Styrofoam cups (16 oz size)
• 1 wooden dowel (a thin wooden rod), about 1/4-inch thick
• 1 Styrofoam freezer tray
• 2 straight sewing pins
• 1 plastic lid (like from yogurt), about 4 inches across
• 2 metal food cans with the tops fully removed
• Masking tape
• Scissors
• A hot glue gun (low heat)
• A metal file
• A ruler
• A drawing compass
• An unsharpened pencil
• A sharp knife
• Gloves (for safety with the knife)

How to Do It

Important: Do this activity with an adult helping you.

Step 1. Lay the garbage bag flat (the floor works fine). Cut it into strips about 3 inches wide and 10 inches long. You need 8 strips, but cut a few extra ones for practice.

Step 2. Stretch each plastic strip. Hold one end in each hand. Grip it tightly. Slowly pull until the strip is a bit more than twice as long, and about 1 inch wide. Some strips may break — that's okay! Go slowly. Once you have 6 good stretched strips, cut about 2 inches off each end (the parts you held, which didn't stretch).

Step 3. Measure the small and large ends of a Styrofoam cup. Use your compass to draw two small circles and one large circle on the Styrofoam tray. Using a compass (instead of tracing the cup) helps you find the exact center of each circle. Carefully cut out the circles with the knife. Wear gloves!

Step 4. Make the Fixed Cup:

• Poke a hole in the bottom of one cup, the same size as your dowel.
• Poke a matching hole in the center of the large circle and one small circle.
• Glue these circles onto the large and small ends of the cup.
• Push the dowel through both holes, so about 1 inch sticks out past the large end.
• Glue both ends of the dowel in place.
• Add a smooth blob of glue around the dowel at the small end. This will be the pivot point (the spot where the next part will wobble around).

Step 5. Make the Wobble Cup:

• Poke a hole in the bottom of the other cup — make it a little bigger than the dowel, so the cup can wobble freely.
• Poke a matching hole in a small circle.
• Glue the small circle onto the small end of this cup.

Step 6. Put a 1-inch line of glue inside the rim of the Wobble Cup. Press one end of a plastic strip onto the glue. Hold it with a pencil until it sets. Repeat with all 8 strips, spacing them evenly around the cup, with small gaps between each strip.

Step 7. Slide the Wobble Cup onto the dowel so the small ends of both cups are close together. Use tape to hold the Wobble Cup centered on the dowel for now. Glue the loose ends of the plastic strips onto the circle on the Fixed Cup. The strips should be snug, but not pulled so tight that they drag the Wobble Cup off-center.

Step 8. Cut a 1-inch hole in the center of the plastic lid (wear gloves!). Remove the tape. Glue the lid onto the large end of the Wobble Cup, with the hole centered on the dowel. Push a sewing pin into each end of the dowel. Your engine is done!

Step 9. Use the metal file to make a small notch in the rim of each can. Set the cans so the pins on each end of the dowel can rest in the notches. Spin your engine gently to test if it's balanced. If one side feels heavier, add sewing pins to the lighter side until it balances.

Step 10. Put your engine in the sunlight — and watch it spin!

Challenge

How could you make this solar heat engine more powerful?

Think About It

Would strips from a white plastic bag work as well as strips from a black one? Think about how color affects heat: some colors reflect heat away, and some colors absorb (soak up) heat. Does this matter for choosing your plastic color?

Your Solar Heat Engine is just a small model — it's not strong enough to do real work. But can you think of ways to use it to learn something? Here's an idea:

Draw a line on the edge of the flywheel (the plastic lid) with a marker. Now you can count how many times it spins around in one minute. Try this on a cloudy day, then on a sunny day. Which one spins more? This shows how clouds change the amount of heat energy reaching your engine.

You could also count spins at different times of day, to see when the sun's energy is strongest. Or compare different times of year — just make sure to measure at the same time of day each time!

If you could run your Solar Heat Engine in two places at once, would it spin faster in Northern Canada or in Southern Florida?

Hint: Different places on Earth get different amounts of sunlight. This is one of the biggest reasons climate is different in different places.