That would mean that winters could be colder and summers hotter in parts of the world, even as the average temperature becomes slightly warmer or cooler. Thus the extremely cold winter of 1996-97 in the middlewest only illustrates how difficult it is to determine whether the average climate is changing. There are also reasons to think that human activity may contribute to making the climate warmer. Scientists and other observers are trying to determine whether this is true, but are not sure. After all, perhaps the warming observed in the past few decades is natural.
Actions cost money and effort.
The Alaska Department of Education and the University of Alaska Fairbanks are in partnership with SAIC's Athena project to provide information on global change at high latitude and to foster Global Change Education. The small map of Alaska indicates special emphasis on that state in the succeeding material. Make all formal and informal educators able to teach and model global change learning in Alaska's schools and communities, knowing that changes throughout the world heavily impact the arctic and sub-arctic regions. In so doing, Alaskan educators will help the people of the state move toward personal empowerment. Refer to Alaska's Educational Standards to see how they fit with this Global Change Material.