This hurricane tracker allows students to view satellite imagery of the Eastern Pacific and the Atlantic and follow the paths of current and recent hurricanes.
A number of different layers can be selected, and the most recent hurricanes are shown as tabs at the top.
Teaching Tips
Positives
This is a great tool for tracking active storms or for looking at the paths of recent storms near the United States.
Additional Prerequisites
Students should be familiar with map layers.
Differentiation
This could be used for any lesson about natural disasters or to track recent hurricanes.
Science classes could use this tool to explore patterns in hurricane development and to predict what might happen if global warming continues unabated.
Scientist Notes
Students can zoom into the map to explore areas at risk of or under potential storm surge. Students can also study storm tracks, particularly tropical depressions and hurricanes from different origins and categories. This is recommended for teaching.
Standards
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.
D2.Geo.9.9-12 Evaluate the influence of long-term climate variability on human migration and settlement patterns, resource use, and land uses at local-to-global scales.
Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS)
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.
