GLOBAL WARMING AND CARBON DIOXIDE: the path

1. Global warming and greenhouse effect

• What the greenhouse effect is
• The natural greenhouse effect and the human contribution
• The evidence for climate change and
• The consequences

Sources:

• Al Gore’s film “An inconvenient truth"
• Articles from scientific magazines and Science in school
• Internet sites

2. The inquiry about the climate change

• Open questions for students and their families on climatic variations (temperature, rainfall, snow and fog)

• Comparison with actual data about climatic variation in Italy in the period 1980-2000

3. Our carbon footprint

• Collection of data about yearly energy consumption in each family, by reading electricity and gas bill and valuating the fuel consumption for transportation

• Calculation of individual carbon footprint by using a CO2 calculator

• Comparison and analysis of the results in each country on the common pbWiki

4. What can we do?

• Internet research to know the impact of each action on the CO2  emissions

• www.ecodieta.it
• www.mycarbonfootprint.eu 

• Pupils have found out that with little efforts each family (four people) could reduce up to 2000 CO2 kg/year

• Compilation of a list of good behaviours, efforts to put good behaviour into practice, initiatives to raise the environmental awareness  of students and their families, compilation of a list of actions that governments and local communities should take to reduce the emissions

• videoconference between Coletti school and Trikala Gymnasium (Greece)

5. Lab experiments

1. Combustion and respiration produce CO2
2. Use of a CO2 sensor