SUMMARY

Selected for the CLEAN Collection. Activity description by CLEAN reviewers.

C-Learn is a simplified version of the C-ROADS simulator. Its primary purpose is to help users understand the long-term climate effects (CO2 concentrations, global temperature, sea level rise) of various customized actions to reduce fossil fuel CO2 emissions, reduce deforestation, and grow more trees. Students can ask multiple, customized what-if questions and understand why the system reacts as it does.

GOALS

To help the user understand the long-term climate effects of various customized actions to reduce fossil fuel CO2 emissions, reduce deforestation, and grow more trees

ACTIVITY DESCRIPTION AND TEACHING MATERIALS

  The International Climate Change Simulation

C-Learn helps people understand the level of emissions reductions needed to address climate change. It is the 3-region, simplified version of the "C-ROADS" simulator.

The simulation is specifically designed for climate communicators, educators, and leaders of the World Climate Exercise, but people coming from a wide array of backgrounds will find it insightful. C-Learn can help people understand the long-term climate effects (CO2 concentrations, global temperature, sea level rise) of various actions to change CO2 emissions, like those from fossil fuels, deforestation, and planting trees. You can ask multiple, customized "what if" questions and understand why the system reacts as it does.

TEACHING NOTES / CONTEXT FOR USE

• Educators will have to provide students with enough background material to help them create interesting scenarios.
• Encourage them to run a set of scenarios that allows them to compare the results of different policy options.
• Suggest reading the Briefing, Introduction, and FAQ (http://forio.com/simulation/climate-development/htm/faqs2.htm) tabs and decide the concepts you want the learners to emphasize.
• Instructors should spend some time playing with the simulator before using it in class.
• For high-school learners, more scaffolding would be needed.

About the Science

• Students are able to change the fossil fuel emissions of CO2 measured in Gigatons (billions of tons) of CO2 per year from the three regional country groups (i.e., developed, developing A, developing B ) as a percentage of Reference Year emissions reached by 2050.
• The reference scenario used here is based on the IPCC scenario know as A1FI.
• There is a thorough technical reference (including data sources from IPCC AR4) for C-ROADS at http://climateinteractive.org/simulations/C-ROADS/technical/technical-reference/C-ROADS%20simulation%20reference%20guide%20.
• Passed initial science review - expert science review pending.

About the Pedagogy

• One of a suite of visualizations from C-LEARN this interactive can help augment research or discussions about the challenges and opportunities relating to reducing CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere.
• C-LEARN allows students to run their own scenarios and examine the results. Although there are only a small number of variables that can be changed in any scenario, the number of permutations provides a wide range of policy options to explore.
• There are extensive set of instructions at http://forio.com/simulation/climate-development/htm/instructions.htm. There are popups to explain key words and concepts.
• fuller understanding entails looking at the assumptions and data embedded in the C-ROADS simulator.

Technical Details/Ease of Use

Easy to use and simple. For information on the assumptions in the C-LEARN simulation, review the technical information on C-ROADS (of which C-Learn is a derivative -- the carbon cycle, forests, and climate sectors are identical).

ASSESSMENT

Assessment is at the discretion of the educator and how this simulation is applied.

REFERENCES AND RESOURCES

These related sites were noted by our reviewers but have not been reviewed by CLEAN

Climate Interactive: http://www.climateinteractive.org/