Human Impacts on Earth
7th Grade Science · 5 lessons
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Lessons
- 1Clues to Past ClimateClimate data from ice cores, tree rings, and ocean sediments helps scientists understand past climate patterns and predict future changes.Lesson
- 2Correlation Is Not CausationTwo quantities can rise together without one causing the other — ice cream sales and drowning deaths both rise in summer. Establishing cause needs a controlled experiment or a plausible mechanism, not just a trend line.Lesson
- 3Carbon Footprint of a ChoiceComparing two options honestly means counting the whole life cycle, not just the moment of use. An electric car emits nothing at the tailpipe but has a large manufacturing footprint, so the fair comparison is over the vehicle's whole life.Experiment
- 4Ocean AcidificationAbout a quarter of the carbon dioxide we release dissolves into the sea, forming carbonic acid and lowering ocean pH. That makes it harder for corals, molluscs and some plankton to build their calcium carbonate shells.Experiment
- 5Cause, Correlation and Climate DataCarbon dioxide concentration and global temperature have risen together for a century, which is correlation. What makes the link causal is the physics: carbon dioxide absorbs infrared, a mechanism measured in the laboratory long before the trend appeared.Experiment
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