Clarkson, NYSERDA, NASA offer climate change workshop for state teachers

POTSDAM — Through the combined efforts of Clarkson University, the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, teachers are being taught this week.

Since Monday, Clarkson has been hosting a NASA-funded workshop to help middle and high school science teachers better teach students about global climate change.

The workshop, which is supported by NYSERDA and attended by 15 teachers from across the state, offers a variety of projects and resources to help educate students about climate change.

“It’s certainly unique in the north country,” said professor Susan E. Powers, associate director of Clarkson’s Institute for a Sustainable Environment and one of the workshop’s main instructors. “There are a couple of others in the state, but we are the only ones who are bringing in NYSERDA to disseminate resources across the state.”

In January 2010, Clarkson received a grant for approximately $300,000 from NASA’s Global Climate Change Education Initiative. With the grant money, the college already has sponsored one summer climate change workshop and offered an undergraduate engineering course in climate change.

As with the previous workshop, this week’s workshop will help teachers promote project-based learning, critical thinking skills and data analysis related to climate change.

In addition to several guest speakers, two Clarkson graduate students and one undergraduate have augmented the workshop’s offerings by assembling resources and making sample lesson plans.

“This is an internship for me, but it also counts as a research credit,” said Micah P. Fish-Gertz, one of the Clarkson students assisting with the workshop. “Through the class and this internship, I’ve learned more about climate change. This workshop has taught myself and a lot of other teachers that we can mitigate climate change. There is hope.”

Among the resources provided by Clarkson and NYSERDA were software lessons and NASA databases of satellite images and climate models.

The workshop also offered student-friendly projects, including an energy-based board game and an activity where students could design and test their own miniature wind turbine blades.

Some of the 15 teachers attending the workshop hailed from as far as Westchester and Buffalo.

Two north country teachers also were in attendance, including Darlene M. Bissonette, a science teacher at St. Lawrence Central School, Brasher Falls.

She said Wednesday that the workshop’s Internet- and computer-based resources would be especially valuable in making climate change interesting for high school students, who are naturally attracted to technology and technological resources.

“They have provided so many resources to use, from websites to applets, and they’ve also created student units,” she said.

“The Clarkson professors and students have taken numerous hours to come up with projects that are related to our state standards. The stuff they have here is cooler, more hip. The kids love to go to the computers.”