The Procedure

     The first thing that you need to do is be certain that you know
what the greenhouse gases are. Click on the link to find out if you already know them.

     Now that you're sure about those greenhouse gases, your
second job is to jump into your time machine to find out if there
have been any changes in the atmosphere in the distant past. You should also look at the recent past and compare them. If you find changes you need to decide if you think they were caused by human activity, or if they were natural variations that were beyond our control (again, what might humans have been doing then to
produce so much of those gases).

     Third, while you're back in the past, don't forget to look for any signs of past climate changes, and see if you feel that they
were caused by those greenhouse gases. Again, you should
compare what you find in the past to what we see happening now.

     Next, you need to decide whether you feel that any climate changes that might have occurred were as a result of changes in the levels of those greenhouse gases, or just natural variations in temperature. Use the data that you collected; did any climate changes occur around the general time of an atmospheric change?

          You're almost done. Now you need to try to decide whether there is anything that we need to do in this century that might have an effect on the atmospheric changes that we know we are currently experiencing. Of course, you might feel that we don't need to do anything, because the changes we see happening are not going to cause us any problems.

     Finally, the last step. Everyone is waiting for you, Dr. Determine, once you have collected all of your data you need to write a two
page letter addressed to the citizens of the world that tells them what you've figured out. Is the current climate change our fault or not, and how did you reach that conclusion? Is there anything that
we can do to slow or stop the ongoing change, or is it not worth the cost and effort? Is there in fact cause for concern, or is it something that we don't need to worry about? If there is cause for concern, what might be some of the possible effects that will be experienced? What about wildlife? Might anything happen to the plants and animals of the planet if the predictions are true, or is it possible
that all of the scientists are wrong? What facts have you collected that support your beliefs?
     In order for the Earth's population to believe what you tell them, the letter that you write must contain specific references to where you got this information (this being the 21st century people
can now find on their computer the information that you had to time-travel to collect for them). This can be done by naming the web sites where people can look up the facts that you refer to in your letter.

During the course of this project you must show me  what data and information you have collected each week.

Title

Introduction

Task

Procedure

Resources

Evaluation

Teacher Page

Credits