This video describes some of the changes occurring in the Eastern United States due to climate change and details some of the adaptations, economic downsides, and future risks to the region.
Students will learn about the risks to tourism, threats to fisheries, heat effects in urban areas, risks of flooding in coastal communities, increasing pests and invasive species, and specific human health threats related to climate change.
Teaching Tips
Positives
Environmental justice issues are addressed as the narrator describes how economically disadvantaged areas may experience the negative effects of climate change more acutely as jobs in coastal areas and rural areas are threatened by worsening climate conditions.
The narrator defines new vocabulary such as high tide flooding and urban heat island effect, both verbally and with illustrations.
The video strikes a balance between describing the negative effects of climate change and presenting learners with ideas to adapt to changes and prevent further impacts.
Additional Prerequisites
Students should be familiar with the concept of greenhouse gas emissions trapping heat and causing climate change.
Students should understand how coastal communities are especially vulnerable to the effects of climate change such as flooding, severe storms, and sea level rise.
Differentiation
Before watching the video break students up into two groups and ask one group to predict how climate change might affect the tourism economy in the Eastern United States and ask the other group to predict how it may effect the native wildlife.
This video is packed with information, so it may be helpful to pause the video after each new climate change effect is mentioned and have students take notes, discuss their thoughts, or use a graphic organizer to jot down notes about what they learn and wonder.
Have students independently research how air quality effects individuals' health and research the air quality in their region.
Consider having students create art representing the four seasons of the Northeastern United States and have them discuss the effects of climate change on seasonality.
Scientist Notes
This video from PBS and Katherine Hayhoe is an excellent resource. Dr. Hayhoe is an accomplished and well respected atmospheric scientist. All information presented is accurate and verifiable. This resource is recommended for teaching.
Standards
Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS)
ESS2: Earth's Systems
HS-ESS2-2 Analyze geoscience data to make the claim that one change to Earth’s surface can create feedbacks that cause changes to other Earth systems.
ESS3: Earth and Human Activity
HS-ESS3-6 Use a computational representation to illustrate the relationships among Earth systems and how those relationships are being modified due to human activity.
LS2: Ecosystems: Interactions, Energy, and Dynamics
HS-LS2-6 Evaluate the claims, evidence, and reasoning that the complex interactions in ecosystems maintain relatively consistent numbers and types of organisms in stable conditions, but changing conditions may result in a new ecosystem.
Common Core English Language Arts Standards (CCSS.ELA)
Speaking & Listening (K-12)
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.SL.11-12.3 Evaluate a speaker's point of view, reasoning, and use of evidence and rhetoric, assessing the stance, premises, links among ideas, word choice, points of emphasis, and tone used.
