World leaders will meet in Copenhagen next week for the U.N. Climate Change Conference. I thought it would be helpful to put together a list of related online resources that are accessible to English Language Learners.

I also have a number of links on The Best Sites To Introduce Environmental Issues Into The Classroom, and won’t be duplicating them here. So you might want to check-out that list, too. You might also be interested in The Best Online Carbon Calculators.

Here are my choices for The Best Sites To Learn About Climate Change (not in any order of preference):

Countdown To Copenhagen is a Wall Street Journal interactive timeline displaying major events related to climate change over the past forty years.

Advancing Emissions is another interactive from the Wall Street Journal charting changes in greenhouse gas emissions over the past forty years.

Breathing Earth is an intriguing visual representation of the effect each country has on climate change.  You move the cursor to a nation on a world map, and then see the number of CO2 emissions that country makes each minute.  It also shows total population, and the birth and death rate of each country. With guidance, English Language Learners could certainly use this website to make some comparisons between countries and draw conclusions from the data.

Tides Of Change is a series of closed-captioned NASA videos related to climate change. NASA also has a site entirely devoted to climate change issues, including many interactives.

A Climate Map from the British newspaper The Guardian shows the impact rising temperatures will have on the world. It’s a little “busy-looking” but would be accessible with some teacher interpretation.

Here’s an infographic showing which countries have lived up to the Kyoto agreement on the environment and which have not.

The Guardian has another interactive titled How climate change will affect food resources.

Copenhagen Challenge is an online game on climate change. It provides audio support for the text, but seemed complicated to me. However, I’m continually surprised at how well my English Language Learner students can figure out how to play and win online games.

The Planet is accessible to advanced ELL’s, and provides a good overview of different environmental challenges facing our planet, including climate change.

The New York Times has an interactive graphic called Sea Ice in Retreat. It focuses on what is going on in the Arctic.

BBC Climate Change: Bloom is an animated, and accessible feature that lets the user view and choose many different actions that can be taken individually to reduce global climate change. It won a Webby Award this year.

National Public Radio has a series of reports on the effects of global warming around the world.

The Denver Post has an exceptional series of photos called Melting Ice: Glaciers and Ice Shelves. It very vividly shows the change in size of various glaciers because of global warming.

What Is Global Warming is a simple and accessible interactive graphic explaining…global warming.

Enhanced ‘greenhouse effect’ causes global warming is an interactive from USA Today.

National Geographic has an excellent map of Global Warming Effects around the world. The map, images, and language is very simple, and accessible to Early Intermediate English Language Learners. It’s part of a larger feature called The Greenhouse Effect.

The Discovery Channel has a Global Warming Interactive.  It’s pretty “jazzy” looking, with lots of point and click features showing the effects of global warming. It’s probably accessible to high Intermediate and advanced English Language Learners.

The Global Warming Facts and Our Future from the National Academy of Sciences is a very engaging and extensive site, and includes audio support for the text. The vocabulary may be pretty challenging for Intermediate English Language Learners, but it’s worth the attempt.

What Causes Global Warming? is simple series of pictures demonstrating various activities that contribute to global warming.  When you put your cursor on each picture, a short explanation appears.

The Washington Post has a Global Emissions Interactive that shows the amount of carbon emissions from each country has changed over the years.

The Guardian just published an infographic titled A changing pattern – world climate anomalies.

Copenhagen Climate Conference Begins is a slideshow from The Wall Street Journal.

Impact of climate change is a series of video reports from the BBC.

The Key Effects Of Climate Change is an accessible infographic from the BBC.

The Financial Times has an interactive graphic titled “Carbon emissions past and projected.”

The Guardian has A complete guide to the Copenhagen climate change summit.

Climate Change and Global Warming for Children is a very accessible animation.

Copenhagen climate change conference 2009: we look at the problems our changing planet is facing is a slideshow from The Telegraph.

What Is Global Warming? comes from the CBBC Newsround.

The New York Times has an interactive graphic titled Copenhagen: Emissions, Treaties and Impacts.

The Carbon Economy is an infographic video. That link is from YouTube. It’s from the Economist, and is available from its website (which shouldn’t be blocked by filters), but it doesn’t appear to be working right now.

Copenhagen: Voices from the edge of climate change is an interactive from The Guardian that has audio reports from people around the world directly affected by climate change today. The Guardian also has a similar video.

Powering The Earth is a neat interactive infographic that shows different regions, their populations, and their carbon emissions between 1980 and 2007.

Love Letters To The Future lets your write a short letter to the future generation about your hopes for the future in the face of climate change.

TckTckTck is another neat site related to climate change.

“100 Places To Remember Before They All Disappear” is a series of slideshows from Newsweek highlighting places threatened by climate change. It’s pretty impressive.

Climate Change: The Threat to Life and A New Energy Future is a virtual (and real-life) exhibition from The American Museum of Natural History. It has an incredible amount of resources for educators and others, including a kids section.

A Journey Through Climate History is a very, very impressive interactive from ABC in Australia. It highlights key events affecting climate change over the past one hundred ten years.

Is weather becoming more extreme? is a slideshow from The Boston Globe.

An Interactive History of Climate Science is pretty neat — you need to check it out to see how neat it really is.

“Conversations With The Earth” is a new site from the Smithsonian. Here’s how it describes itself:

This exhibition—the first of its kind devoted to indigenous science—provides a Native perspective on global climate change. Through photographs, video, and audio of tribal communities from the Arctic to Brazil, the environmental impact of pollution is found in the stories of imposed mitigation and its consequences on local livelihoods.

Conversations with the Earth offers the voices of the Earth’s traditional stewards in the search for a viable response to the challenges of climate change. In the words of Inupiat leader Patricia Cochran, chair of the Indigenous Peoples Global summit on Climate Change, “We are a harbinger of what is to come, what the rest of the world can expect.”

Without question, the best part of the site shows tons of video interviews with people from all over the world.

Ology — Climate Change

Climate Science Info Zone is from The British Science Museum.

Global climate talks timeline is from The Guardian.

Which nations are really responsible for climate change – interactive map is from The Guardian.

A Student’s Guide to Climate Change is from The Environmental Protection Agency.

An animated journey through the Earth’s climate history is from The BBC.

NASA Visualization Shows Global Temperature Changes (VIDEO) is from The Huffington Post.

Changing Planet is a series of closed-captioned videos from NBC Learn

How global surface temperature, ocean heat and atmospheric CO2 levels have risen since 1960 is a chart from The Economist.

Global Warming & Climate Change Myths is from Skeptical Science.

Surging Seas shows the impact of rising sea levels due to climate change.

The world map of CO2 emissions is an interactive from The Guardian.

NASA has created this video titled “Watch 131 Years of Global Warming in 26 Seconds” and you can read more about it here :

Here’s a video mash-up from the Symphony Of Science to The Best Sites To Learn About Climate Change:

Planet In Peril is from CNN.

The New York Times has published an interactive that allows you to see how rising waters might effect major cities throughout the United States.

The Guardian has published an interactive infographic that lets you see the temperature change over the past one hundred years in most locations in the world. Just type in your city and country and, voila, you see it graphed for your location.

NASA just released this video showing temperature changes in the world since 1880 and including 2012 — it’s an updated version of one they’ve released in previous years:

Permafrost and climate change – interactive is from The Guardian.

Feedback and suggestions are welcome.

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