Unit 06 · Climate & Climate Change
This unit separates the weather outside the window from the climate of a place over decades. It covers what sets a region's climate zone, how the greenhouse effect keeps the planet warm and what happens when its balance shifts, how scientists read past climate from proxies — ice cores, tree rings, sediment — and how carbon moves through ocean, air, rock, and life in the carbon cycle. Mastery means you can tell weather from climate and read a proxy record as evidence of change over time, not a single day's forecast.
| Criterion | Not yet | Approaching | Mastered |
|---|---|---|---|
| Weather vs. climate | Uses weather and climate interchangeably; a cold day disproves warming. | Says climate is long-term but still cites single events as proof either way. | Distinguishes weather (days) from climate (decades) and judges change from trends, not one season. |
| Climate zones & what sets them | Cannot say why one place is a desert and another a rainforest. | Names climate zones but not the factors — latitude, altitude, currents — that set them. | Explains how latitude, elevation, ocean currents, and winds combine to set a region's climate zone. |
| Greenhouse effect & the carbon cycle | Thinks the greenhouse effect is only harmful, or confuses it with the ozone hole. | Describes the greenhouse effect but cannot trace carbon through its reservoirs. | Explains how greenhouse gases trap heat and traces carbon through ocean, atmosphere, rock, and life. |
| Evidence for climate change | Treats climate change as opinion rather than something measured. | Names one proxy but cannot connect it to a record of past climate. | Reads ice-core, tree-ring, and CO₂ records as converging evidence of how climate has changed. |
| Lab technique (proxy data) | Cannot read a proxy graph or relate its axes to time and temperature. | Reads the trend but misinterprets the axes or the timescale. | Analyzes ice-core or tree-ring data and defends what its trend says about past climate. |
| Integration (cross-domain) | Treats the science as isolated facts; makes no cross-domain connection. | Names a link to history, reading, or writing but cannot defend why it matters. | Connects the unit to its anchor across History · Reading · Writing (plus chosen electives) and defends why the connection matters. |
“One freezing week doesn’t undo warming — climate is the trend over decades, and the trend is up. The Keeling Curve has tracked CO₂ rising since 1958, and ice cores push that record back thousands of years. The greenhouse effect keeps Earth livable; adding carbon faster than the cycle removes it is what shifts the balance.”
“It snowed last week, so global warming can’t be real. Weather and climate are pretty much the same thing anyway.”
You demonstrate this unit through climate-proxy data analysis — reading ice-core and tree-ring records — plus short oral checks where you reason from the evidence aloud, not a multiple-choice test. A criterion counts as mastered only when you can both read the record and justify the climate story behind it. Mastery is demonstrated, not awarded.
A 5-page clipboard packet — unit overview, key terms, the mastery rubric, anchor examples, and a score sheet you can print and grade against.