This video uses potato cultivation to describe different climates around the world.
The video features sections on weather vs. climate, vertical climate zones, geo-literacy, ecological niches, and the Köppen climate classification system.
Teaching Tips
Positives
The video ends with an Indigenous land acknowledgement, focusing on the original inhabitants of South America.
Excellent animations and graphics make this video easy to understand.
Additional Prerequisites
This is a great video to show students before discussing climate change.
Differentiation
Social studies and history students could watch this video when studying the Age of Exploration or the Columbian Exchange.
Science teachers could show this video before starting a group project where students researched different climates around the world.
This resource from Crash Course uses the history of potato cultivation to showcase the classification of the different climate zones across the globe. The information provided is accurate and verifiable. This resource is recommended for teaching.
Standards
Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS)
ESS2: Earth's Systems
MS-ESS2-6 Develop and use a model to describe how unequal heating and rotation of the Earth cause patterns of atmospheric and oceanic circulation that determine regional climates.
College, Career, and Civic Life (C3) Standards
Dimension 2: Geography
D2.Geo.10.6-8 Analyze the ways in which cultural and environmental characteristics vary among various regions of the world.
D2.Geo.10.3-5 Explain why environmental characteristics vary among different world regions.
D2.Geo.7.3-5 Explain how cultural and environmental characteristics affect the distribution and movement of people, goods, and ideas.
