TOPIC: Correlation Inquiry- Greenhouse Gas Emissions

OBJECTIVES:

1) Knowledge:

• understand adequately the specific terminology used to describe climatic change: greenhouse gas emissions, energy consumption per capita

2) Skills:

• draw conclusions from information assembled

3) Attitude:

• begin to identify principles and concepts on which the resolution of environmental issues should be based

RESOURCE MATERIALS:

1. Worksheet: Data on the Rankings of Population, Greenhouse Gas Emissions per capita, Area, and Energy Consumption per capita for selected world nations
2. calculator
3. graph paper or computer program for graphing

INSTRUCTIONS:

1. Pose the question to the students:" Do you believe that a nation's population size and area are significantly related to the emissions of greenhouse gases?"
2. Pose a second question:"Do you believe that any greenhouse gases reduction treaty should consider the individual population sizes and areas of nations, or simply treat all nations as equals?"
3. Distribute the worksheet containing the data and questions.
4. Have students, working in pairs, do Part A- Hypothesis and Testing
5. Do Part B- Conclusions
6. Review answers.

COMPLETION TIME:

• Approximately 30-40 minutes.

EVALUATION:

1. Teacher monitors students working in pairs
2. Completion of task mark for graphing and correlation calculations
3. Apply techniques to a bigger sample of countries using actual data instead of rankings