This interactive map shows Candians' beliefs, risk perceptions, and policy preferences about climate change. The map can be viewed in English or French.
The map contains public opinion data for several climate statements, such as climate change will harm you personally, or Earth is getting warmer.
Students can view data for each climate statement at the national, province, or riding level.
Teaching Tips
Positives
The opinion map tool is easy to use.
The generated data can be printed and used for other purposes.
Additional Prerequisites
Students should be familiar with the concept of public opinion and understand how public opinion affects trends.
Teachers should review the material before deciding on how to implement it with students.
Differentiation
In groups, students could generate opinion fact maps about different regions of Canada and compare their results.
After reviewing the data, students could reflect on the following questions:
Why do you think some regions' climate opinions differ from other regions' climate opinions?
What are some factors that could influence a region's opinions?
How could the information in this map be useful for a politician, an educator, a climate activist, or a scientist?
Statistics or political science classes could read about how the data for the map was generated by clicking the link below the map in the About the Data section.
Scientist Notes
Using a multilevel regression with post-stratification (MRP) on a large national survey dataset (n>9,000) is appropriate to model people's perceptions of climate change to show relative behavioral patterns, beliefs system, and underlying factors influencing their attitude towards climate change in Canada. This resource is recommended for teaching.
Standards
Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS)
ESS3: Earth and Human Activity
MS-ESS3-2 Analyze and interpret data on natural hazards to forecast future catastrophic events and inform the development of technologies to mitigate their effects.
College, Career, and Civic Life (C3) Standards
Dimension 2: Civics
D2.Civ.6.6-8 Describe the roles of political, civil, and economic organizations in shaping people's lives.
D2.Civ.10.6-8 Explain the relevance of personal interests and perspectives, civic virtues, and democratic principles when people address issues and problems in government and civil society.
D2.Civ.12.6-8 Assess specific rules and laws (both actual and proposed) as means of addressing public problems.
D2.Civ.10.9-12 Analyze the impact and the appropriate roles of personal interests and perspectives on the application of civic virtues, democratic principles, constitutional rights, and human rights.
Dimension 2: Economics
D2.Eco.12.9-12 Evaluate the selection of monetary and fiscal policies in a variety of economic conditions.
D2.Eco.15.9-12 Explain how current globalization trends and policies affect economic growth, labor markets, rights of citizens, the environment, and resource and income distribution in different nations.
Dimension 2: Geography
D2.Geo.1.6-8 Construct maps to represent and explain the spatial patterns of cultural and environmental characteristics.
D2.Geo.10.6-8 Analyze the ways in which cultural and environmental characteristics vary among various regions of the world.
D2.Geo.2.9-12 Use maps, satellite images, photographs, and other representations to explain relationships between the locations of places and regions and their political, cultural, and economic dynamics.
Dimension 4: Taking Informed Action
D4.6.6-8 Draw on multiple disciplinary lenses to analyze how a specific problem can manifest itself at local, regional, and global levels over time, identifying its characteristics and causes, and the challenges and opportunities faced by those trying to address the problem.
