The Greenhouse Effect and the Carbon Cycle Perturbed: Science Unit 3, Grade 12 (Letters & Devotion)

Description

The Greenhouse Effect and the Carbon Cycle Perturbed is Unit 3 of Environmental Science: Systems, Evidence, and Choices (Part 1) (Grade 12), the Letters & Devotion Science course, complete in one printable PDF: 10 lessons, the unit check-up and the answer key, 91 pages.

• The electromagnetic spectrum bands for incoming shortwave and outgoing longwave radiation
• Selective molecular absorption of infrared radiation by greenhouse gases versus transparency of N2/O2
• The gap between a no-atmosphere radiative balance prediction and Earth’s observed surface temperature
• The Keeling curve’s seasonal cycle versus its long-term trend
• The ice-core CO2/temperature record compared against the Keeling curve’s post-industrial segment
• Positive and negative climate feedback loops (ice-albedo, water vapor, cloud) and their boundary conditions
• The causal chain from fossil fuel combustion through radiative forcing to measured warming
• Falsifiability criteria applied to the CO2-radiative-forcing-warming mechanism
• The greenhouse mechanism applied to a hypothetical planetary atmosphere with different gas composition
• The distinction between mechanism-level scientific claims and magnitude/policy-level claims about climate change

Every lesson is written for a parent with no teaching background: it opens with a short script to read aloud, names the specific wrong idea a student is likely to reach for and how to correct it, and closes with a practice sheet you may copy for your household. Scripture references are King James Version throughout. Black-and-white, 8.5 x 11 in. The whole year of this course is also in this store as a single book.

AI note: The written content of this resource was drafted with AI tools, then reviewed and edited by the author.