Grade level presentations - After the teachers’ meeting I go to the gym or cafeteria or another large indoor space where I meet the kids and teachers one grade level at a time for about 30 minutes per grade. Kids sit in rows on the floor. Chairs just get in the way. This means up to 100 kids in the space at a time. Of course I'm miked, and have my projector and screen set up. I lay out the ground rules early for each group. I run a no-nonsense but fun program. Kids love learning when they can get physically involved. Crowd control is my specialty. I love the kids. Nobody misbehaves in my classes.

For each grade level there are a few simple concepts to get across and we do it as much as possible through exploration, movement, music, poems, touch, physical models, games and verbal and physical repetition. Each grade level gets an age appropriate piece of the puzzle, and the information still flows in generally the same order as the Inconvenient Truth book, movie, or slide show. What follows is a first attempt at a curriculum. I want your help on fleshing it out.

Kindergarten – The concept to get across here is that scientists continually look for answers and sometimes change their minds about things they previously thought were true. Students learn a song about our "Big Blue Marble" and they get to see the globe from space and hear about space exploration and how the pictures were taken. They then get to put the world together, showing us how the continents drifted apart. To do that we project the appropriate slides up on the screen and show the idea. Then they all get in two big groups, called Africa and South America, and then the groups slowly move apart. They learn that scientists can change their mind as new facts come to light. They learn how much fun it is to explore new ideas. For instance they all get out their imaginary magnifying glasses and mill around the room looking at real or imaginary things that are very small, and they all get out imaginary telescopes and look at things that are up in the sky and far away. They practice chanting in unison "It isn't what you don't know that gets you into trouble, it's what you know for sure that just isn't so." (Grammar corrected version of Mark Twain saying.)

First graders – The concept to get across is how the atmosphere protects us and how it is very delicate. They get to learn about the atmosphere and greenhouse gases. We start with a game where we look at a globe and then we try to guess how many sheets of blue paper we need to put on top of a pile of 1,500 sheets of white paper to represent the atmosphere that keeps us warm and safe. Of course the answer is one sheet. Then we talk about the trees breathing carbon dioxide in and oxygen out, and they all get to stand up spread out their arms and breath in slowly together, then they breath out slowly together. Next the kids are all gathered together as the Sun in the middle of the room, facing out. Then using a big globe which some of the kids hold and slowly tilt, we can circle around the room and show how the Sun shining on the earth changes with the seasons. First graders learn how the Sun heats the earth and how the atmosphere protects us,;and they can tell us why we are the "Goldilocks Planet" with temperatures that are "Just Right" when compared to Venus and Mars and Mercury. We use choral response here. They will love to be able to shout out “too cold,” “too hot,” and “just right.”

Second graders – The concept to get across here is that glaciers are melting, deserts are being created, and habitat is being lost, making it hard for animals to survive. To represent glaciers, everybody stands up and spreads out and fills up the available space, locking arms and hands, like ice crystals. Then the warm air comes in and they melt, and slowly ooze together into soggy puddles on the floor. They can show us how the animals (birds, insects, mammals, amphibians, reptiles) need to migrate higher and higher, and we can do that with hand puppets for some of the kids, and these "animal kids" can climb a mountain (some sort of gym shape or pile of mats) to show how they need to go higher up as the ice melts. Eventually they run out of space. Next 90 % the kids are drops of water in the soil, supporting the other 10% who are wearing hand puppet frogs. The frogs can jump from kid to kid, from moist place to moist place, saying “ribbit” as they go. One group at a time the water droplets (kids) leave the gym floor and go back and sit down in their original rows, but the frogs need places to sit that are moist, so they are desperately seeking habitat. Eventually there are just as many droplets as frogs, with one frog on each droplet. Finally there is just one droplet left with all the frogs gathered on top of it. The kids can tell us what happens to frogs as it gets drier. They get to shout out in unison - "They croak!"

Third graders – This group can learn about hurricanes. We put big name tags on about 50 of the kids. Then we can model the Atlantic Ocean on the gym floor with kids sitting along the two shores, Europe and Africa on the East, the Americas on the West. We assign the kids with name tags to be hurricanes. The kids sitting around the edge use their magic sunshine rays (wiggly fingers and hot breath) to warm up the ocean slightly at first with little motions and little breaths, and getting stronger and stronger with bigger motions and bigger breaths and stronger hand movements. First we model storms in the early 1900s, with two minutes for the whole summer. I point to a particular smaller kid, say their name, and they slowly pirouette from the Africa side of the room to the North America side. Then I point to another small kid, and they do the same. I want only one kid on the floor turning at a time, and they go slowly across, glancing off the North America side, or fading softly into it. Then we model storms in the 1970s and this time the heat is higher, and the magic rays from the sun are stronger, and the named hurricanes (kids) are bigger and they move faster, and they spread their arms out farther, and they cause some consternation when they get to the shore. Finally the biggest kids go across, with as many as 4 on the floor at a time, sending 30 across in one two minute summer, 1995, and really messing up the other side, causing chaos as they land. We then sit down and talk about why this is happening. We show all the hurricane slides and talk about frequency, duration, intensity and resultant damage.

Fourth graders – These sophisticated learners can become the global ocean conveyor belt. We can show the slide from Mr. Gore’s show which presents the ocean conveyor belt in action. Then we establish an Atlantic with kids on the perimeter, and an Arabian sea, and a Pacific. Those kids sit. We just need signs for Greenland, India, Alaska, the Antarctic and Europe. Then the rest of the kids can walk in a single file line standing tall with arms upraised up from the Southern Ocean to the North Atlantic representing warming water coming up from the equator and creating the Gulf Stream. When they get to Greenland they turn south and sink and become cold, "duck walking" back down past the coast of Africa and up the Arabian sea to India, where they get warm and rise again and turn and come back down to the Southern Ocean walking taller and taller as they get up to Greenland, when they sink down again. Of course half of the kids, every other one, will duck walk all the way to Alaska across the Pacific before rising up to "flow" back to the Atlantic. We will save 20 kids to be the Greenland Ice cap. At a signal they will melt, rush forward, and stop the system.

Fifth graders – These “older kids” learn about the melting of Greenland and the Poles. We start with polar bears needing to find a new home. Some audition for the polar bear roles and the rest of the kids get to move out on the floor to sit close together and become ice flows. They start in big groups, and then these groups get smaller and move farther apart. The Polar Bears wear white bath mats on their backs and walk on all fours. (To represent melting I say, "Everyone who is part of the ice pack with a December birthday go back and sit down, everyone with a March birthday go sit down, etc." until they are all seated back in their rows, and the polar bears are left swimming around with no ice to land on.) "Are we going to let this happen?" "No!" Then we do the same with glaciers and penguins. Some kids get to waddle like penguins enjoying the ice. Then as the ice melts they have no place to live. "Are we going to let this happen?" "No!" Finally we show the effect of the rise in sea level on people using the slides. "Are we going to let this happen?" "No!"

Sixth graders – The concept to get across here is the difference in the effect on sea level between melting of mountain glaciers and the floating ice of the Arctic on the one hand, and melting of Greenland and the South Polar continental ice on the other hand. I’ll roll a fish tank into the gym, filled half full of water at room temperature. I’ll put a block of ice in the water to signify floating sea ice. I’ll mark where the water line is on the glass. Then I’ll ask the kids what will happen to the water level as the ice melts. I’ll put an immersion heater in the water and let the ice slowly melt as the ocean temperature rises. While the ice is melting we’ll watch some of the slides that have to do with this piece of the program. Then we will note that there is no change in the water level on the edge of the fish tank.

Next I’ll put a cinder block in the tank that represents a continental mass, either Antarctica or Greenland, with the water just slightly over the top of the island. We’ll note the water level on the edge of the glass, and get student response about what will happen when that ice melts. Then we’ll put a block of ice on the island and melt it with a hair dryer to represent warmer atmosphere, and maybe run the immersion heater too. We will make a little "city" or "shoreline" in the fish tank just at water surface level before the ice melts and then we’ll watch it submerge as the ice disappears. We’ll note what happens to sea level.

Then we will do the math on the blackboard (whiteboard). How much volume is in the world's oceans? How much volume is in the Greenland and Antarctic ice? If half the ice melts, how far up will the waterline go? If it all melts, what will happen? We will show the slides that show what this will do to people in Florida, New York City, Shanghai, and Bangladesh? We will introduce the term, “climate refugees.”

With 7^th and 8^th graders we can use the slides and a more "adult" presentation.