In this lesson, students will analyze graphs to determine the extent of sea level rise and its connection to global warming.
Students will learn how sea level rise affects people worldwide, interact with graphs, record data, and make hypotheses.
Teaching Tips
Positives
The provided graphs organize the data for students in a simple manner.
The resource provides rich background information for teachers and students to deepen their understanding of global warming and sea level rise.
Additional Prerequisites
The interactive element in the discussion section requires a flash plug-in.
Students should know how to read a line graph and find the average of a dataset.
It may benefit students to understand climate change and the greenhouse effect.
The "Images of Change" link under the Extension section doesn't work.
Differentiation
This lesson would fit well before one on climate solutions and adaptation strategies, primarily adaptation strategies for flooding and other effects of sea level rise.
Discuss the impact sea level rise has on coastal communities and research displacement, migration, and other elements resulting from sea level rise.
Have students write their hypotheses and support them with data found in the activity.
Younger students may need to do this lesson as a whole class, rather than answer questions independently.
Scientist Notes
This resource is from the CLEAN collection. “The CLEAN collection is hand-picked and rigorously reviewed for scientific accuracy and classroom effectiveness.”
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
MS-ESS3-4 Construct an argument supported by evidence for how increases in human population and per-capita consumption of natural resources impact Earth's systems.
MS-ESS3-5 Ask questions to clarify evidence of the factors that have caused the rise in global temperatures over the past century.
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.
Common Core Math Standards (CCSS.MATH)
Functions: Interpreting Functions (9-12)
CCSS.MATH.CONTENT.HSF.IF.B.6 Calculate and interpret the average rate of change of a function (presented symbolically or as a table) over a specified interval. Estimate the rate of change from a graph.
Geometry (K-8)
CCSS.MATH.CONTENT.5.G.A.2 Represent real world and mathematical problems by graphing points in the first quadrant of the coordinate plane, and interpret coordinate values of points in the context of the situation.
Ratios & Proportional Relationships (6-7)
CCSS.MATH.CONTENT.7.RP.A.2 Recognize and represent proportional relationships between quantities.
