This video explains the connection between poverty and extreme heat in Phoenix, Arizona.
Students will learn that the city's plan to plant more trees will lower temperatures, but it will be expensive and difficult for lower-income citizens to maintain the trees.
Teaching Tips
Positives
The video shows the correlation between climate change and poverty levels using the visuals of a heat map and an income level map.
The video description provides links for further reading.
Additional Prerequisites
Students should have a basic understanding of climate change.
The video may begin with an ad.
Differentiation
Students could compare the conditions in their community with that of Phoenix and decide if the community could benefit from planting trees. If the community would benefit from more trees, students could raise money and plant trees in the community.
Students could work in groups to research the surface temperature maps and the poverty rates of different cities.
Other resources on this topic include this SubjectToClimate lesson plan on urban tree density and environmental justice, this article on the ways that heat impacts infrastructure and people, and this video on how urban heat affects communities of color.
Scientist Notes
This resource is a 7-minute video that presents a very compelling case study looking at the relationship between wealth, poverty, climate change, and infrastructure. Wealthy communities in Phoenix, Arizona have more trees for shade than poorer communities, and this has a direct link to health. This is a very well-produced video. 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.
HS-ESS3-1 Construct an explanation based on evidence for how the availability of natural resources, occurrence of natural hazards, and changes in climate have influenced human activity.
College, Career, and Civic Life (C3) Standards
Dimension 2: Geography
D2.Geo.2.6-8 Use maps, satellite images, photographs, and other representations to explain relationships between the locations of places and regions, and changes in their environmental characteristics.
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.
