Pitt Science Outreach brings educational science experiments to schools and community events throughout the Western Pennsylvania region on an 80-foot tractor-trailer, equipped as a state-of-the-art student science laboratory. The mobile science lab features 26 workstations and customized equipment. Read more about their outreach program here.
Impacts of Climate Change outreach event
This activity is geared towards students between grades 4-8.
Students will learn about the mechanisms behind climate change and how these mechanisms impact the Earth's landscape over time.
Elementary Level - Using a demontration of the Enhanced Greenhouse Effect, the students will collect, graph, and analyze their data over time. They will also observe landscape changes over time as a result from impacts of climate change, and they will match statements of common observations of climate change to graphed data.
Middle School - Students will conduct experiments representative of impacts of sea level rise, thermal expansion and glacial calving. They will collect and graph data, then analyze their final results. They will also observe landscape changes over time as a direct result of the impacts of climate change.
Program Duration: 60 minutes
Time Required Between Classes: 10 minutes
Climate Lectures
In additional to the mobile science lab, the outreach program offers personalized lectures to local classrooms (K-12) on climate topics that interest students most. We are currenty developing lecture material for the upcoming school year.
Diving into Earth's Past
Students will learn how researchers use reconstructed data to interpret the past and discuss the environmental, climatic, and human disturbance implications. The reconstructed data focuses on the analysis of lake sediment cores and fossil proxies.