This video shows how rising sea levels are impacting coastal communities around the world.
Students will learn that scientists are studying how higher temperatures in the atmosphere, warmer ocean currents, and the geology of a region contribute to rapid sea level rise.
Teaching Tips
Positives
The video uses helpful illustrations to explain the way ice sheets melt from both above and below in the ocean.
Additional Prerequisites
This video was produced in 2011. For up-to-date information on sea level rise, visit NASA's page.
Some of the graphics look dated.
Differentiation
Geography classes could use this video in a lesson about the future impacts on society if unmitigated sea level rise continues.
Students could make a sea level cause and effect list and discuss solutions for preventing sea level rise from destroying coastal communities.
This resource is a collaboration between NSF and NBC, which is a well-produced and clearly presented video describing the causes and impacts of sea level rise. There are associated lesson plans and textual descriptions to accompany this resource. This resource is recommended for teaching.
Standards
Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS)
ESS2: Earth's Systems
MS-ESS2-2 Construct an explanation based on evidence for how geoscience processes have changed Earth's surface at varying time and spatial scales.
HS-ESS2-2 Analyze geoscience data to make the claim that one change to Earth’s surface can create feedbacks that cause changes to other Earth systems.
ESS3: Earth and Human Activity
MS-ESS3-5 Ask questions to clarify evidence of the factors that have caused the rise in global temperatures over the past century.
College, Career, and Civic Life (C3) Standards
Dimension 2: Geography
D2.Geo.9.9-12 Evaluate the influence of long-term climate variability on human migration and settlement patterns, resource use, and land uses at local-to-global scales.
