This short animation shows on a map how average global and national temperatures have changed over time.
Using Ed Hawkins's climate stripes data, the video shows lower-than-average annual temperatures in shades of blue and higher-than-average annual temperatures in shades of red.
Teaching Tips
Positives
This video will work well in multilingual or bilingual classes because it contains no words or text.
Students will see that the frequency of warmer-than-average years has escalated in recent decades.
Additional Prerequisites
Teachers may want to read about Ed Hawkins's climate stripes before using this video.
Differentiation
Art classes could use this video in a discussion about the color wheel. Using the concept of warm and cool colors, students could make artwork that shows how global temperatures are rising.
Geography classes could discuss how climate change impacts people and places. Students could reflect on the following questions:
How might warmer temperatures change a region's economy?
How is culture connected to place? Could climate change disrupt or destroy cultures?
Will warmer temperatures affect some groups of people disproportionately? Why?
The resource shows temperature records from 1900 to 2021. It is indicative of how increasing human activities induces global temperatures. This is recommended for teaching.
Standards
Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS)
ESS2: Earth's Systems
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.
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.
