Geoscience Women in STEM
Lesson 3: Is climate change happening where you live?
If climate change is the "new normal," how can we help students and citizens recognize that it is occurring? This lesson encourages students to look closely at their own local environments, and at other geographic regions where they might not expect to find evidence of climate change.
Connections to the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS)
- Aligning with 3-dimensional teaching and learning
- Science and Engineering practices: Asking questions, Analyzing and interpreting data, Engaging in argument from evidence
- Crosscutting concept: Cause and effect, Stability and change
To learn more about Crosscutting concepts click here
To learn more about Science and Engineering Practices click here
Activity 1: What's the Climate of your Climate?
To access the classroom-ready documents for this activity click here.
Scientists predict that climate change will impact every region on Earth. Will it impact your state? Has it already impacted your state? This lesson allows students to investigate their home state and another state of their choice to determine the predicted and observable changes where they live and compare them with another state.
Once students have reflected on the changes they may have personally experienced, have them add these events to their personal timeline.
Activity 2: Wrapping-up Lesson 3
Revisiting their personal timelines from Lesson 1, students can consider how their new understanding of science and scientists has affected their thinking. How do they now think about the way their lives might be affected by science and other STEM fields? How might students affect science and other STEM fields? As scientists? As science literate citizens and members of other professions?
The activities on this website are intended to promote the idea that all people are invited to join in creative endeavors of science. Individuals of all backgrounds, ages, and abilities can be encouraged to engage with the geosciences, whether as a geoscience professional, as a hobbyist, or through civic engagement. Because each person has a role to play in the areas that geoscientists study — including Earth's resources, natural hazards, and understanding the wonder of our environment — geoscience truly is for everyone.
For more information and resources related to the theme "Geoscience Is for Everyone" and geoscience education in general, visit the Earth Science Week website.
© 2020. American Geosciences Institute.