This article aligns the concepts of Essential Principle 2 of the Climate Sciences to the K-5 content standards of the National Science Education Standards. The author also identifies common misconceptions about heat and the greenhouse gases effect and offers resources for assessing students' understanding of interactions among components of the Earth system. This article continues the examination of the climate sciences and climate literacy on which the online magazine Beyond Weather and the Water Cycle is structured.

This article identifies age-appropriate national science education content standards and curriculum connections for introducing complex concepts contained in Principle 7 of the Essential Principles of Climate Sciences. The principle describes consequences of climate changes on Earth systems and human lives. The content standards will help teachers determine appropriate topics for their students. A number of resources from the online magazine Beyond Weather and the Water Cycle are highlighted for their connection to the science curriculum in the early grades. In addition, the article identifies common misconceptions about weather and the water cycle often held by students.

In Massachusetts, Manchester-by-the-Sea's wastewater treatment plant is located right on the coast. The town's water utility is working with the EPA's Climate Ready Water Utilities program to consider its adaptation options.

After 90 percent of the town was damaged or destroyed by a tornado, Greensburg, Kansas, and Kiowa County Memorial Hospital developed a Long-Term Community Recovery plan to rebuild for resilience.

Trees within a city can help reduce urban heat, control stormwater, and provide habitat to local wildlife. As climate conditions change, a Chicago group is working to enhance its urban forest so that the city can continue to receive these benefits.

In partnership with the National Science Digital Library and Apple, NCAR and UCAR offer podcasts that provide a brief and accessible overview on climate and climate change. These podcasts, short 5-8 minute videos you can download on your computer or iPod, are a part of the NSDL on iTunes U collection.

This article presents some aspects of the societal and scientific challenges of sharing what is known about climate change by offering insights from Native Alaskans and Western scientists.

This article provides an overview of the types of glaciers, glacial formation, movement and retreat, and how scientists are studying glaciers and their response to climate change.

Students learn how the greenhouse effect is related to global warming and how global warming impacts our planet, including global climate change. Extreme weather events, rising sea levels, and how we react to these changes are the main points of focus of this lesson.

This article provides links to standards-based science and literacy lessons about weather, climate, polar climates, and climate change.

A regional conservation partnership in Massachusetts needed to update their approach to evaluating land acquisitions. Adding the complexity of climate change to their map helped resolve their vision.

From this original story, young readers and listeners learn about four tools scientists use to study climate - climate stations, weather balloons, satellites, and buoys. The story is available at two reading levels and in three formats - text-only, illustrated booklet, and electronic book. Glossary included. Each issue of Beyond Weather and the Water Cycle contains an original story that expands on the theme.

As the Atlantic Ocean warms, many marine species—including commercially important fish stocks—are moving further north along the Northeast United States. As a consequence, fishing boats based in traditional ports need to travel further to catch the same fish, or change their strategy to pursue different species of fish. In turn, businesses that serve fishing communities may need to purchase new equipment, develop new practices, or encourage workers to gain new skills. In order for fisheries and the businesses that depend on them to prepare for such changes, fisheries managers need tools to identify which fishery resources may be most vulnerable to our changing climate.

In this 2-part inquiry-based lesson, students conduct a literature search to determine the characteristics of the atmospheres of different planets (Venus, Mercury, Mars and Earth). After collecting and analyzing data, student teams design and conduct a controlled physical experiment using a lab apparatus to learn about the interaction of becomes CO², air, and temperature. The resource includes student worksheets, a design proposal, and student questions. Connections to contemporary climate change are addressed. This lesson is the first of four in Topic 4, "How do Atmospheres Affect Planetary Temperatures?" within the resource, Earth Climate Course: What Determines a Planet's Climate?

In this kinesthetic activity, the concept of energy budget is strengthened as students conduct three simulations using play money as units of energy, and students serve as parts of a planetary radiation balance model. Students will determine the energy budget of a planet by manipulating gas concentrations, energy inputs and outputs in the system in this lesson that supports the study of climate on Mars, Mercury, Venus and Earth. The lesson supports understanding of the real-world problem of contemporary climate change. The resource includes a teacher's guide and several student worksheets. This is the second of four activities in the lesson, How do Atmospheres affect planetary temperatures?, within Earth Climate Course: What Determines a Planet's Climate? The resource aims to help students to develop an understanding of our environment as a system of human and natural processes that result in changes that occur over various space and time scales.

This set of three videos illustrates how math is used in satellite data analysis. The videos feature NASA senior climate scientist Claire Parkinson. Parkinson explains how the Arctic and Antarctic sea ice covers are measured from satellite data and how math is used to determine trends in the data. In the first video, she leads viewers from satellite data collection through obtaining a time series of monthly average sea ice extents for November 1978 – December 2012, for the Arctic and Antarctic. In the second video, she begins with the time series from the first video, removes the seasonal cycle by calculating yearly averages, and proceeds to calculate the slopes of the lines to get trends in the data, revealing decreasing sea ice coverage in the Arctic and increasing sea ice coverage in the Antarctic. In the third video, she uses a more advanced technique to remove the seasonal cycle and shows that the trends are close to the same, whichever method is used. She emphasizes the power of math and that the techniques shown for satellite sea ice data can also be applied to a wide range of data sets.

This article examines the sixth of seven essential principles of the climate sciences--"We Change Earth's Climate." Written for the science teacher, the article covers greenhouse gases, land-use changes, and other human-induced causes of global climate change. Each issue of the free online magazine Beyond Weather and the Water Cycle is structured around one of the seven principles. The content provides background information, lessons, and activities for K-5 classrooms.

This article describes two hands-on lessons to teach elementary and middle school students about ice, glaciers, and climate change in the polar regions.

Facing sea level rise, increasing numbers of wildfires, and encroachment of invasive species, managers of a national forest chose to integrate climate change into their new plan.

A federal study assessed vulnerabilities of transportation infrastructure to extreme events in Mobile, Alabama. The effort also resulted in tools and approaches that other transportation departments can use to assess and address their own vulnerabilities.