Credit: Tim Bralower © Penn State University is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0
DR. TIMOTHY BRALOWER: Hi, everybody. Welcome to module 2 on recent climate. And I'm standing here in Duke Gardens. It's 2019, and if you came to Duke Gardens 12 years ago, 15 years ago, you would never see so much lush subtropical vegetation. And the vegetation has changed here because climate has changed in this region, and that is happening everywhere. And the predictions are for more severe storms, and that has already borne out with Hurricane Katrina, 2005, Hurricane Sandy, 2012, that struck New York, and Hurricane Harvey in 2017 that dumped 56 inches of rain in metro Houston.
So all of the predictions are coming true for a climate change, and this is what's being borne out in the recent climate record. I just wanted to mention one other thing. Last year was a devastating fire year in California, and drought and fires are definitely part of the prediction for global climate change in arid regions such as the US Southwest. So I think in this module, you'll learn a lot about the recent climate record and how that projects to the future of what we'll see with continued global climate change. I hope you enjoy the module.
In this example, the instructor uses a short video to introduce a lesson on recent climate change. In the video, the instructor explains how and why his surroundings (Duke Gardens) are different from what they were 12 – 15 years ago and that the result is due to recent climate change. The video gives relevance to the lesson’s objectives and the week’s material with a visual example and explanation. Because students are able to make a connection between what is seen and described in this video and what they are learning in the course, they are likely to be motivated to engage and learn.
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Include captions and transcripts for all videos.