This resource provides a number of interactive heat maps of the United States, an interactive graph showing the number of people under heat alerts over the last 30 days, and links to additional interactive maps and information about heat and health.
From this starting point, students can explore current U.S. temperatures, climate outlooks, heat forecasts, extreme heat days by 2050, and days over 90 degrees by 2050, or click on recent heat-related news articles.
Teaching Tips
Positives
This website is an excellent starting place for a variety of lesson plans based on the concept of heat and its effects on humans.
There are several articles, mapping tools, interactive maps, and data visualizations linked from this resources.
Contributing organizations include the CDC, FEMA, NOAA, and the Department of Health and Human Services
Additional Prerequisites
Teachers and/or students will need access to the Internet to utilize this resource.
Students should be comfortable with interpreting charts and maps.
This is the "Home" page of the HEAT.gov website.
Differentiation
This resource will work well with both whole-class instruction or individualized research or assignments. There is enough information for a class of 20 students to each choose different topics.
The information provided can easily be integrated into science, math, and language arts classes.
Social science classes can also benefit from this website. Students can draw conclusions about how the people and communities in the most affected areas are likely to be impacted in the future.
Earth science and geography classes can use the heat maps to discuss topography, prevailing winds, and continental position in relation to weather conditions and predicted weather in the future.
Scientist Notes
To assist communities in preventing and treating heat-related illnesses, this portal incorporates health, weather, and vulnerability data. It is correctly sourced and serves as an effective communication tool to aid in US policy formulation. It is advised to use this resource when instructing.
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
HS-ESS3-5 Analyze geoscience data and the results from global climate models to make an evidence-based forecast of the current rate of global or regional climate change and associated future impacts to Earth systems.
College, Career, and Civic Life (C3) Standards
Dimension 3: Gathering and Evaluating Sources
D3.2.9-12 Evaluate the credibility of a source by examining how experts value the source.
Common Core English Language Arts Standards (CCSS.ELA)
Reading: Informational Text (K-12)
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.11-12.1 Cite strong and thorough textual evidence to support analysis of what the text says explicitly as well as inferences drawn from the text, including determining where the text leaves matters uncertain.
