Summer Warming Driven By Climate Change
Articles/Websites
Grades6-APEarth and Space Sciences, Health
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Provided by Climate Central
What it is
- This article reports how summer temperatures across the United States have warmed since 1970, with marked regional differences.
- Students learn how more frequent hotter-than-normal days raise health risks, worsen air quality, and impact communities unequally.
Teaching tips
Classroom Implementation:
- The article links to downloadable local data and interactive maps; have students look up their own city or county to ground the trends in their experience.
- Use the regional warming comparisons to support a data-analysis or graphing activity in which students interpret temperature trends.
Extensions:
- Connect the discussion of unequal heat exposure and redlining to environmental justice using this video.
- Have students use the interactive maps to compare the impacts of hotter summer temperatures across counties within their state.
Interdisciplinary Connections:
- Mathematics:
- Use this article as a jumping-off point to discuss measures of central tendency and how focusing only on a seemingly small average increase in temperature may be dampening the dangerous extremes.
- Have students graph average temperature data over time in a scatterplot and analyze trends.
From the scientist review
This article discusses how climate change has affected summer temperatures across the US. It highlights regional differences in warming and examines other factors, in addition to climate change, that are affecting temperatures. Links to additional resources and data are provided. Reviewing the data helps students better understand the article's findings and how they are derived. The information presented is accurate, and this resource is recommended for teaching.
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