This map shows how Americans feel about making fossil fuel companies pay for climate damage.
The map is interactive. Students can zoom in and click on different demographic areas to view data by metro area, congressional district, state, or county.
Teaching Tips
Positives
This beautiful interactive map is incredibly useful in exploring Americans' attitudes on the question "who should pay for climate change?"
Students will enjoy interacting with the map because they can view local climate opinions as well as climate opinions from any other place in the United States.
Additional Prerequisites
On the left side, students can sort by national, state, congressional district, metro area, or county.
Teachers should remind students to pay careful attention to how the key changes when a new question is selected.
Differentiation
This map can be used at the end of a climate change lesson to show the link between burning fossil fuels and climate change. Students can interact with their map while responding to the following prompt: who should pay for climate change?
Social studies classes could discuss the connection between the opinions in each region and the local industries in that region. Students could use this map of fossil fuel resources to understand which regions rely on fossil fuel companies to keep their economies going.
This resource presents data on the American people who want to hold fossil fuel companies responsible for the local damages of global warming. Notably, burning fossil fuels accelerates greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere which in turn increases global mean temperatures. The model used in this study simplifies the dataset on the perception of lawsuits against fossil fuel companies. The sample size is representative of the population with a 95% level of confidence. This resource is recommended.
Standards
College, Career, and Civic Life (C3) Standards
Dimension 1: Developing Questions and Planning Inquiries
D1.5.6-8 Determine the kinds of sources that will be helpful in answering compelling and supporting questions, taking into consideration multiple points of views represented in the sources.
Dimension 2: Civics
D2.Civ.1.6-8 Distinguish the powers and responsibilities of citizens, political parties, interest groups, and the media in a variety of governmental and nongovernmental contexts.
D2.Civ.6.6-8 Describe the roles of political, civil, and economic organizations in shaping people's lives.
Dimension 2: Economics
D2.Eco.2.6-8 Evaluate alternative approaches or solutions to current economic issues in terms of benefits and costs for different groups and society as a whole.
D2.Eco.9.6-8 Describe the roles of institutions such as corporations, non-profits, and labor unions in a market economy.
Dimension 2: Geography
D2.Geo.1.6-8 Construct maps to represent and explain the spatial patterns of cultural and environmental characteristics.
D2.Geo.4.6-8 Explain how cultural patterns and economic decisions influence environments and the daily lives of people in both nearby and distant places.
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.
