Climate Change Impacts Educator Guide

TILclimate climate impacts guide for educators

Photo Credit

Jose Antonio Alba and Water Alternatives via Flickr

This Guide for Educators was developed by the MIT Environmental Solutions Initiative as an extension of our TILclimate (Today I Learned: Climate) podcast, to make it easier for you to teach climate change, earth science, and energy topics in the classroom. It is an extension of the TILclimate episode "TIL about climate impacts."

Browse all TILclimate guides for educators.

Description

We hear about climate impacts all over the world, often in global terms. But what is happening where? And what will happen in our own communities? Students play a game to understand changes to precipitation. Then, using the US Climate Resilience Toolkit, they investigate local climate concerns and solutions.

SWBAT:

Explain how carbon dioxide in the atmosphere causes higher temperatures.
Explain some relationships between higher temperatures and changes to precipitation.
Understand key climate challenges for their area.
Understand a few adaptation solutions for their area.

Skills:

Understanding graphs
Communicating scientific understanding

Standards:

HS-ESS2-4 Use a model to describe how variations in the flow of energy into and out of Earth’s systems result in changes in climate.
HS-ESS3-5 Analyze the results from global climate models to make an evidence-based forecast of the current rate of global or regional climate change.

Disciplinary core ideas:

ESS2.D Weather and Climate
ESS3.C Human Impacts on Earth Systems
ESS3.D Global Climate Change

What is included in this Educator Guide

How to use TILclimate Educator Guides (Download)
Teacher pages (Download)
- Includes materials, setup instructions, discussion questions, background resources, extensions, and adaptation suggestions for science, social science, and ELA teachers
Student pages (Download)
- The Water Cycle Game
- Investigate local climate impacts
- Investigate climate adaptation and resilience