This is an issue oriented outline of the Earth Summit framework. It focuses on issues, with the science needed to address each issue in sub-heads. For each theme, there is a global (or regional in the case of the fisheries) perspective. Learners put their country in a global context, then get to their country's specifics.
1. Identify basic information about your country:
a) What is the population of your country?
b) What are the economics of your country?
c) What is the GDP (gross domestic product)?
d) What is the per capita income?
e) What are your country's natural resources (i.e.: lumber, petroleum/coal, minerals, fertile soils, and geothermal energy)?
f) How is your country doing towards environmental sustainability?
g) Are there other important social issues specifically affecting your country?
1. Ocean basins and plate tectonics
a) Global perspective
(1) Global plate tectonics-where is your country?
b) Regional perspective-hazards
(1) Hazards from shaking by earthquakes
(a) level of development (damage potential)
(b) location of quakes relative to developed areas (cities)
(2) Volcanic eruptions
(a) development near active volcanoes
(3) Landslides/mudflows/lahars
a) Global perspective
(1) Climate zones
(a) related to global atmospheric circulation pattern
(2) Seasonal changes
(4) Deep ocean circulation and the global heat conveyor
b) Regional perspective
(1) Agriculture
(a) Rainfall on land
(b) Desertification
(c) Deforestation
(2) Storms, cyclones, hurricanes
(a) Monsoons
(b) History of major cyclones/typhoons
(3) Productivity in the ocean
(a) Upwelling
(b) El Nino
1) droughts and floods
(4) Ozone depletion
a) Does your country add to the problem?
b) Is your country (i.e.: people, animals, vegetation) adversely affected by the ozone hole?
3. Climate and global warming
a) Global perspective
(1) Predicted climate change due to CO2 emissions
(a) Warming or cooling effects
(b) Global climate change, or what we can learn from past climate changes: paleoclimate
(2) Sea level rise
(a) global warming/greenhouse gases
(b) glacial versus interglacial periods
(1) Greenhouse gas emissions
(a) relationship to economy and growth
(b) relationship to quality of life (i.e.: air pollution)
(c) relationship to population growth
(1) related to average income (middle class?)
(d) relationship to income (cars)
(1) automobile ownership
(e) power generating fuels mix
(1) effect on economy (import fuels?)
(2) local fuels (oil/gas/coal/solar)
(3) investment in green alternatives
4. World fisheries
a) Regional perspective
(1) Productivity and upwelling
(2) Productivity and ocean currents
b) Health of the regional fisheries
(1) catch vs. El Nino
(2) catch over time
(3) What species are fished?
(4) Range – do they stay in country's boundaries?
(5) Water pollution-rivers and coastal waters
1. Major integrative (writing or summative) activities:
a) Position paper 1 = natural hazards,
b) Position paper 2 = climate and climate change.
c) Negotiating the final treaty.
(1) This would use a world model that summarizes the consequences of all countries' positions and produces a basis for identifying practices that must be negotiated between countries.
2. Global perspective
3. Science "case" made for impacts, must use Earth data.
4. Attempt to determine consequences, and set values on various impacts, specific for chosen country.
a) This could be data for the world model
This would be supported by a piece of software that keeps track of all of the country positions on each issue. In particular, countries would be required to provide specific values that could be summed to produce a global result. It would make these summaries, and individual country positions available to all students. Communication via chat and threaded discussion (BBS) would support communications between country groups. In a live class, student presentations would serve a communications function. This negotiating forum would also link to student prepared position papers.
1. Develop a feedback model for the consequences and solutions, based on student inputs
Each country group would enter population growth targets, economic development targets, etc. As the class enters the data, it will be possible to see the consequences vis-à-vis carbon emissions.
a) Value assigned to each consequence
b) Feedbacks between values
c) Stella model, for prototype testing
2. Challenges to model building
a) What to do about countries not represented by students
b) How to group countries according to shared interests
c) Level of complexity
3. What is included in model?
The model need not include every effect. A simple model could illustrate how difficult sustainability will be as population and development pressures lead to increased energy use, thus increasing carbon and other greenhouse gas emissions.
a) Simplest model
This model would simply keep track of the carbon budget for the atmosphere and ask students to estimate the effects of the possible temperature changes due to this increase. A range of temperatures could be given, from models. Students would attempt to assess impacts, based on temperature and rainfall changes predicted for their country, from models.
(1) Population increase
(2) Energy production
(a) Greenhouse emissions from power generation, industry
(b) Greenhouse emissions from automobiles
b) More complex model
This would be a more ambitious project that would probably require a team of experts in different fields.
(1) Population increase
(a) relation between standard of living and number of children
(2) Energy production
(a) Greenhouse emissions from power generation
(b) Greenhouse emissions from automobiles
(c) Cost of importing fuels for autos and power generation
(d) Investment in sustainable alternatives
(3) Economic development
(a) Gross domestic product
(b) World bank loans and paybacks
(c) Allowable foreign capital available
(d) Development investments