Natural Records of Climate Change: Working with Indirect Evidence

Students play a dice game to explore the differences between direct and indirect evidence. Student pairs roll dice and record the numbers rolled as a series of colors instead of numbers. Other pairs of students try to crack the color code to figure out the sequence of numbers rolled. In this way, students gain an understanding of how indirect evidence of climate change can be interpreted. In conclusion, the class discusses the various records made by humans and indirect evidence found in nature that can be studied to understand how climate has varied through time.

Key Concepts

Scientists collect data from many sources to identify, understand, and interpret past changes in Earth's climate.
Natural records of climate change, such as tree rings, ice cores, pollen and ocean sediments offer indirect evidence of climate change. They require knowledge of how the natural recorder works.
Records made by humans , such as artwork, harvest records, and accounts of changing seasons, are more direct, but can be incomplete.

Resource ID#: 1403 Type: Lesson Plan

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