Climate Change and Its Impact on the Midwest and Great Plains
Provided by: PBS |Published on: June 1, 2023
Videos
789101112AP
Synopsis
This video describes some of the changes occurring in the Midwest and Northern Great Plains due to climate change and discusses adaptations, economic downsides, and future risks to the region.
Students will learn about the risks to agriculture and communities, shifting growing seasons, decreasing glaciers and snowmelt, increasing pests and invasive species, and specific examples of efforts in Chicago to plant trees that will survive in warmer temperatures.
This video drives home the fact that Americans are already experiencing the impacts of climate change and highlights how negative effects can be environmental, social, and economic.
The video strikes a balance between describing the negative effects of climate change but also presenting learners with ideas to adapt to changes and prevent further impacts.
Additional Prerequisites
Learners should have a basic understanding of agriculture and the conditions needed to grow crops.
It may be beneficial to explain that increasing temperatures allow for more water vapor, which can affect rain and snow events or evaporation rates.
Provide the definitions of 500-year floods and 100-year floods to better help students understand the big changes happening already.
Differentiation
After watching the video, have students turn and talk about the concept of adapting to a changing climate and what they think can be done at a community level to ensure nature and humans thrive.
Consider having students choose a different plant species from the Midwest or Northern Great Plains and research its growth requirements to determine how its growth and range might change in a changing climate.
This video would be excellent for students learning about ecology, agriculture, climate change in middle America, or agricultural economics.
In a math or economics class, learners could analyze the insurance claims related to climate disaster such as a flooding event in the Midwest like the narrator described in Chicago.
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