More resources for understanding the environment, for learning, and for action

Submitted by Jerry Halberstadt on Wed, 10/31/2012 - 03:03
More resources on the environment, saving energy, educational resources on earth and space science.

  • What a candidate for President should say
  • Connections between what people do/don't do and climate change
  • HUD programs to save energy in older housing
  • Free resource for educators: CAMEL
  • Encyclopedia of the Earth
  • Free educational resources, NASA WAVELENGTH, earth and space science for all levels, children & adults
  • EPA Greenhouse Gas calculator
  • National Renewable Energy Laboratory

  • What a candidate for President should say

    The question that neither Presidential candidate answered correctly: "What do you believe is the greatest future threat to the national security of this country?"
    Here's an answer about climate change as imagined by David Minkow of Climate Access

    • Connections between what people do/don't do and climate change

      Joe Romm: An Illustrated Guide to the Science of Global Warming Impacts: How We Know Inaction Is the Gravest Threat Humanity Faces

    • Is there a connection between climate change and a storm like Sandy? from Climate Code Red

    • HUD programs to save energy in older housing

      HUD pilot program to save energy in older multi-family housing developments

      HUD spends about $6 billion annually on energy costs in subsidized, low-rental housing for the elderly and disadvantaged. HUD recently announced a $23 million series of grants to pilot programs to develop and test approaches to saving energy in older multi-family housing developments.

      The goal of HUD’s pilot program is to develop ideas and mechanisms that could potentially be replicated nationally, as well as help create industry standards in the home energy efficiency retrofit market. In addition, the pilot program will create public/private partnerships as a result of capital investments from private industries and create green jobs in construction, property management, and technical analysis (e.g. energy audits and building commissioning), including opportunities for low income residents.

    • Free resource for educators: CAMEL

      CAMEL [Climate Adaptation Mitigation E-Learning]is a FREE, COMPREHENSIVE, INTERDISCIPLINARY, MULTI-MEDIA RESOURCE for educators, providing over 200 interdisciplinary topic areas and numerours resource types to give the educator the tools they need to teach CLIMATE CHANGE causes, consequences, solutions and actions. The Educator is able to build their own personal website, invite others and collaborate around teaching materials, strategies and assessment.

      CAMEL engages experts in science, policy, decision-making, education, and assessment in the production of a virtual toolbox of curricular resources for teaching climate change CAUSES, CONSEQUENCES, SOLUTIONS and ACTIONS.

      CAMEL incorporates inquiry based learning using the highest educational practices targeting the undergraduate educator, but can be utilized by graduate, as well as K-12 level educators to provide them with peer reviewed resources to teach climate change. This resource will allow all educators to have equal access to vetted, high quality teaching materials about climate change, adaptation, mitigation and possible solutions to limit its impact.

      CAMEL is being integrated into the Encyclopedia of Earth, which couples a vetted wiki content environment with social networking and other web 2.0 capabilities. This allows CAMEL to offer Online Educator Networking to assist collaboration among educators around a topic, theme, or regional issues.

    • Encyclopedia of the Earth

      The Encyclopedia of Earth (EoE) is an electronic reference about the Earth, its natural environments, and their interaction with society. The EoE is a free, expert-reviewed collection of content contributed by scholars, professionals, educators, practitioners and other experts who collaborate and review each other's work. The content is presented in a style intended to be useful to students, educators, scholars, professionals, as well as to the general public. http://www.eoearth.org/topics/view/63435/

      http://www.eoearth.org/climatechange

    • Free educational resources, NASA WAVELENGTH, earth and space science for all levels, children & adults

      NASA WAVELENGTH is a great resource for teaching earth and space science, with projects spanning pre-kindergarten to adult education. Climate change is but one of many areas of science that students can explore. Educators at all levels can locate educational resources through information on educational standards, subjects and keywords and other relevant details, such as learning time required to carry out a lesson or an activity, cost of materials and more.

      The issues are meaningful and include:

      • How and why are Earth's climate and the environment changing?
      • How and why does the Sun vary and affect Earth and the rest of the solar system?
      • How do planets and life originate?
      • How does the universe work, and what are its origin and destiny?
      • Are we alone?

      The teaching units seem well-designed and sure to engage students in exploration and learning. There is a treasure trove of data and images that provides direct access to advanced scientific observational data from specialized satelites, the Hubble telescope, photos made by astronauts circling the earth, and more.

    • EPA Greenhouse Gas calculator

      EPA Greenhouse Gas Equivalencies Calculator This calculator may be useful in communicating your greenhouse gas reduction strategy, reduction targets, or other initiatives aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

    • National Renewable Energy Laboratory

      The National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) is the U.S. Department of Energy's primary national laboratory for renewable energy and energy efficiency research and development.

      NREL's Mission: NREL develops renewable energy and energy efficiency technologies and practices, advance related science and engineering, and transfer knowledge and innovations to address the nation's energy and environmental goals.

      Our emphasis is on a comprehensive energy approach that encompasses the relationship among key systems:
      Fuel production; Transportation; The built environment; Electricity generation and delivery. This systems integration approach will accelerate the transformation of our nation's energy use and delivery systems.

      Our focus is on a clean energy future.