Post-Assessment — Carbon & Climate

After completing the unit activities, use this final post-assessment to determine students’ knowledge depth and content gains.

Time Considerations

Getting Ready: 10 Minutes
Doing the Activity: 20-40 minutes

Materials

• Copies of  Post Assessment: Carbon and Climate student page
• Student-completed copies of Pre-Assessment: Carbon and Climate student page (from Pre-Assessment)

Getting Ready

• Make copies of the student pages.

Doing the Activity

1. Give students a copy of the Post-Assessment: Carbon & Climate student page and allow them time to complete it. Remind students that their studies so far have equipped them with the knowledge they need to work through all of these questions successfully and challenge them to rely on those class experiences to help them complete this assignment.
2. Collect the student responses. You may wish to review the student page together, as a class, to reinforce concepts covered by this unit.
3. Ask students to locate the questions they wrote in their science journals on the first day of this unit (see Pre-Assessment, Step 4 ). Have them work in pairs (or small groups) to ask and answer their original questions, and call on volunteers to share their conversations with the whole class.
4. (Optional) To further assess student learning from the unit, compare their responses to questions 3–12 on this post-assessment with their responses to the Pre-Assessment: Carbon & Climate student page.

Answer Key

Part A:

1. Logan: First sentence is correct. Second sentence is mistaken/debatable.
   José: First sentence is correct. Second sentence is mistaken/debatable.
   Shawna: Both sentences are mistaken/debatable.
2. Answers will vary, but should include:
   For Logan: Earth’s climate naturally changes due to the Earth’s tilt and orbit, changes in the sun’s output, and volcanic activity. However, most scientists agree that the speed and timing of the current climate change is due to human activities.
   For José: Planting more trees may help reduce carbon dioxide levels and, thus, the effects of the climate change. However, that alone would not be enough to stop climate change.
   For Shawna: There are many things we as a society and as individuals can do about climate change, including reducing our carbon footprints. While nature does affect climate, human activities also have an impact.

Part B:

1. False. Weather is what is happening daily in an area at a given time, whereas climate is the average of the weather over many years.
2. True.
3. False. Carbon cycles between atmosphere, the land, and the ocean through many different pathways.
4. False. Carbon dioxide is a natural component of the atmosphere. However, the level of carbon dioxide has been rising steadily since 1850.
5. True.
6. False. There have been ice ages and warming spells throughout Earth’s history.
7. B – Studying air bubbles in ice cores. While tree rings can provide information about recent climate conditions in a particular area, and air samples from the Mauna Loa Observatory can provide current and recent data about carbon dioxide levels, scientists use air trapped in ice core samples to measure carbon dioxide levels going back 800,000 years.
8. D – All of the above.
9. C – Plants are blooming earlier in the spring and continuing to grow later in fall.
10. B – Recent article by a university professor that cites the sources of its information.