EPA Climate Change

More climate links

Description of Acadia national parks climate:

http://www.us-parks.com/acadia/climate.html


Confronting Climate Change in Maine:

http://www.climatechoices.org/assets/documents/climatechoices/maine_necia.pdf

Climate Connections - Project Resources

Fun & Interactive Sites

Climate change game from the BBC
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sn/hottopics/climatechange/climate_challenge/

Earth Day Footprint Quiz - an interesting activity for kids to try on their global footprint
http://www.earthday.net/Footprintfaq

EPA Global Warming Kids Site: Focuses on science and impacts of global warming or climate change and on actions that help address global warming
http://epa.gov/climatechange/kids/index.html

General information about climate and weather
http://www.weatherwizkids.com/climate.htm

Climate Change Club Web site from the conservation corps of Newfoundland and Labrador
http://www.conservationcorps.nf.ca/ccc/index.html

Game from IBM and TryScience/NY Hall of Science
http://www.powerupthegame.org/

A site created by WGBH about green living and sustainability
http://www.meetthegreens.org/

An article about how making decisions that reduce your carbon footprint is a great way for kids to get involved in reducing the impacts of climate change
http://www.timeforkids.com/TFK/kids/specials/articles/1,28285,1613313,00.html

Search terms: climate plus anything from the glossary of terms, plus carbon footprint, data, game, kids

Climate Change Skepticism

List of climate change skeptics
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Climate_change_skeptics

Article about a recent conference
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2008/01/what-if-you-held-a-conference-and-no-real-scientists-came/

A site encouraging debate and discussion about climate
http://www.demanddebate.com/

Search terms: climate plus skeptics, global warming, climate change

Scientists & Their Research

Byrd Polar Research Center - studies of various ice core drilling expeditions around the world
http://bprc.osu.edu/Icecore/front-page.html

Notes from the field – a polar scientist talks about a research mission he participated in
http://www.mcgill.ca/reporter/40/07/notes/

Julie Brigham-Grette (2008 FLL Game Challenge Consultant) shares information about her career and research
http://www.geo.umass.edu/faculty/jbg

NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab Polar Playground Ice Buoy: The Argos Buoy is shown on deformed seasonal sea ice in the Weddell Sea
http://southport.jpl.nasa.gov/polar/toys.html

A great resource including the science around climate change, the impact, and solutions
http://www.davidsuzuki.org/Climate_Change/

Links climate change to energy consumption
http://www.iisd.org/climate/

What is Causing the Dramatic Decline in Honeybee Populations in the U.S. & Elsewhere in Recent Years?
http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_5485.cfm

Access to a wealth of Earth science data sets.
http://viz.globe.gov

Search terms: climate plus habitat, data, migration patterns, research, scientists

Climate Data, Governments, & Policy

Find climate data
http://www.worldclimate.com/
http://outflux.net/weather/noaa/
http://www.BestPlaces.net/climate/

Learn more about the concepts of latitude and longitude and find locations around the world
http://www.socialstudiesforkids.com/subjects/latitudelongitude.htm

Climate data from around the U.S.
http://lwf.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/research/ushcn/ushcn.html

Site from Environment Canada includes a report on the status of emissions and plans to curb them
http://www.ec.gc.ca/default.asp?lang=En&n=FD9B0E51-1

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is the Nobel winning, international collaboration that has objectively studied and reported on all aspects of climate change.
http://www.ipcc.ch/

The NASA Earth Observatory includes data, images, experiments, missions, and much more.
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/

EPA’s Climate Change Page: This is a wide-ranging overview of climate change, from science to policy.
http://epa.gov/climatechange/index.html

Search terms: climate plus policy, data, government, collaboration

Update

So a far "Mindstorms Montage" has gone over the FLL challenges and split into two sub-teams that will compete with each other before the actual FLL match on Dec. 6th.

The two teams with be spurring each other on to create the best robots. There will then be a practice competition and the highest scoring robot or elements of both will be incorporated in the final entry.

If both robots are close in score there is the possibility of both robots being brought to the match as a different robot can be used in different matches.

The team has also begun doing research on the project "Climate Connections".

At this point basic robot chassis have been built and attachments started. We hope to start programming next week as well as continuing the project research.

Skills for the New Economy

Thinking outside the box. Jobs in the new economy--the ones that won't get outsourced or automated--"put an enormous premium on creative and innovative skills, seeing patterns where other people see only chaos," says Marc Tucker, an author of the skills-commission report and president of the National Center on Education and the Economy. Traditionally that's been an American strength, but schools have become less daring in the back-to-basics climate of NCLB. Kids also must learn to think across disciplines, since that's where most new breakthroughs are made. It's interdisciplinary combinations--design and technology, mathematics and art--"that produce YouTube and Google," says Thomas Friedman, the best-selling author of The World Is Flat.

More from Time Magazine: How to Bring Our Schools Out of the 20th Century

Ten T Error

I was having trouble with my computer. So I called Richard,
the 11 year old next door whose bedroom looks like Mission
Control, and asked him to come over.

Richard clicked a couple of buttons and solved the problem.

As he was walking away, I called after him, 'So, what
was wrong? He replied, 'It was an ID ten T error.'

I didn't want to appear stupid, but nonetheless
inquired, 'An, ID ten T error? What's that? In
case I need to fix it again.'

Richard grinned. 'Haven't you ever heard of an ID ten T error before?'

'No,' I replied.

'Write it down,' he said, 'and I think you'll figure it out.'

So I wrote down: I D 1 0 T

2008 FLL Kick Off!

Tremont's FLL Teams kicked off the 2008 First Lego League season with their first meeting. Coach Edward Fielding's presentation gave an overview of the FLL competition and the group watched a 20 minute video showing the Zoom Kids competing in a FLL competition.

The team will meet every Monday and Weds after school with the competition on Dec. 6th in Castine. The teams will be judged on their teamwork, research presentation, robotics competition and robot building skills.

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Building a Global Game Plan

Whether the climate be cold, or whether the climate be hot
The climate is different all over
What is it like in your spot?
In Climate Connections
Solutions and questions - of many dimensions
Wait for FLL teams and robots!

When Computers Laugh

Psychologist Edward De Bono – “The Mechanism of Mind”, “Six Hats of Thinking” - stated in the 1960s:


“We have to worry about the day when computers start to LAUGH.”