Sea Level Rise Student Prompt - online version

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Harvard University *

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101

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English

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Apr 3, 2024

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docx

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Uploaded by agentjake7

EAS1600 – Intro to Environmental Science Final Lab Project: Sea Level Rise RPG – Seattle or Charleston Modified from: Daria B. Kluver, Wendy M. Robertson & Rachael Agardy (2018) Role playing a city's response to climate change: Engaging undergraduate geoscience students, Journal of Geoscience Education, 66:1, 25-35, DOI: 10.1080/10899995.2018.1411734 Introduction and Purpose: The purpose of this exercise is for you to combine what we have learned this semester about climate and 1) address some of the causes and effects of climate change, 2) explore different strategies humans can use in response to the threat of climate change, 3) practice using scientific evidence to support a position or argument, and 4) evaluate scientific evidence as presented. To help you gain an appreciation for the complexity of the issues there we are going to take on character roles and propose action plans for either the city of Seattle, WA or Charleston, SC. By the end of this activity, students should be able to:  Identify how rising sea levels will impact regions in the United States  Give examples of prevention, mitigation, and adaptation strategies  Define and distinguish between mitigation, prevention, and adaptation as responses to climate change  Use scientific evidence in support of an argument or conclusion  Employ critical thinking and creativity to solve problems  Challenge student understanding about the complexity of society’s reactions to climate change Activity: You will receive a character sheet that describes your role, your character’s position on what the city should do, and your faction. There are three factions and the city council, which each faction is trying to sway towards their solution in a final vote. However, for this online version your TA will act as the city council and a fourth group will be a competing Mitigation faction.  Prevention: The aim is to prevent further climate change by doing something to reduce or remove the cause(s) . o Due to this being a single city’s actions and there’s a limit to what a city can do compared to the rest of the world, consider finding a preventative solution that allows your city to act as a role-model and leader for a global initiative (e.g. net zero or negative anthropogenic emissions for the city or negating sea-level rise through cooling or other strategies) o Generally large upfront cost, immediate action, benefits farther in the future  Mitigation: The aim is to do something to help reduce the risks from climate change (primarily flooding, but other factors can be considered such as storms, temperatures, etc.). o Focus on safety from the growing threat, but can include some reduction in threat o Moderate but recurring cost + risk as climate continues to change, immediate action  Adaptation Faction: The aim is to not introduce new government-led costs and run “business- as-usual” while simply adapting to climate change and the risks involved as they come o Minimize costs – you can’t contribute what you don’t have, otherwise you’ll end up on

the streets or worse.  City Council: Some of you will be city council members, who will be voting on a final resolution based on the arguments and evidence given by each of the factions. You will need to spend your time looking into the feasibility and actual (not idealized) of possible solutions so you can critically evaluate proposals. You want to be evaluating the presentations of the three groups for convincing, well-developed proposals. General Format: Since we will be working online, with many students in different time zones, even in different countries, we have expanded this activity from one to two weeks worth of labs; however each student is expected to contribute the corresponding ~6 hours of work associated. You will be collaborating to create a 2-page flyer that promotes and informs of your faction/group’s proposal for how to deal with increasing sea-level rise in your city. Your TA will be selecting the most convincing at the end (no extra point, just props and to add a level of light-hearted competitiveness). We will provide a template that you may use and flesh out, or create your own. In addition to the 2-page flyer, there will be a discussion post where each student in the lab section will ask a question to another group about their solution (think about things that were overlooked, or considerations not taken into account, etc.). Additionally, each student will respond to a question with an answer. There may be uneven questions for different groups so some student may need to answer the same question but try to give new insight or a new direction to your answer. The grade for this will be comprised of a group and an individual component. These are outlined in detail in the rubric, but in general are as follows:  Group: 65% o Flyer: Strength and clarity of objectives and goals in proposed solution (20 pts) o Flyer: Cost-benefit and risk-analysis (20 pts) o Flyer: Science (25 pts)  Individual: 35% o Participation and Contributions via Canvas Group Homepage (10 pts)  Note that significant lack of involvement can cause you to lose points for the group side as well . o Contributing Question and Rebuttal on Canvas Discussion (20 pts) o Peer Evaluations (5 pts) – these are completion based and your score for this is not dependent on how you or others score each other Notes: • If you propose to raise money by cutting from the budget, you MUST indicate which part of the budget you will be taking funds from (e.g. education, infrastructure, etc.) • Seattle, WA: • See: https://openbudget.seattle.gov/#!/year/default (interactive) or https://www.seattle.gov/financedepartment/18adoptedbudget/default.ht m • Charleston, SC: • See: https://www.charleston-sc.gov/799/General-Operating-Budget-Documents • While there are not restrictions on font size or use of images, you want to make sure you cover the information necessary for the point distributions on the flyer rubric. Funds, implementation, risks, time to implement, etc are all considerations.

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