Heads up: this browser isn't saving anything for this site, so progress and settings reset when you leave the page. Everything still works while you're here.
Some of ClimateQuest’s cast are still learning. When you teach them, YOU learn it best — catch what they get wrong, then quiz them.
Teach Glint
You be the teacher — Glint is still learning. Helping Glint figure it out is the practice. (Glint's progress stays on this device; nothing is sent anywhere.)
🎓 In a minute you'll be the teacher. Get ready to teach Glint: the ice-albedo feedback loop.
White ice reflects sunlight, dark ocean absorbs it. Melting exposes more dark water, which warms more and melts more ice — a feedback loop.
You've helped them one at a time. The real understanding is how the ideas CONNECT — teach that next.
Blanket (the greenhouse effect — insulating gases trap heat) ×Glint (the ice-albedo feedback — bright ice reflects, dark water absorbs, and warming grows)
Greenhouse gases warm the Arctic a little. Why does the ice-albedo feedback make that small warming grow?
Blanket then says: “The greenhouse effect and the ice feedback are separate problems that never interact.” — is that right?
The link: the greenhouse effect starts the warming; the ice feedback multiplies it.
A little warming, made large by the feedback.
Fathom (ocean heat storage — the sea stores heat and carbon and slows visible change) ×Cusp (tipping points — thresholds where a small push flips a system all at once)
The ocean absorbs so much heat that warming feels gradual. Why is that dangerous near a tipping point?
Fathom then says: “Because the ocean slows change, we always have plenty of warning before any tipping point.” — is that right?
The link: the ocean's delay hides the approach to a threshold that still lurks.
Slow on the surface, close to the edge underneath.
Capstone — tell one climate story together
Three parts of a warming story. Bring in the cast member for each.
What traps the heat in the first place. Who?
Who do you bring in?
A feedback that makes the warming grow. Who?
Who do you bring in?
What people can do together to slow it. Who?
Who do you bring in?
The synthesis: gases trap heat, a feedback multiplies it, and collective action can still bend the curve — the whole climate story in three moves.
