This interactive resource includes a number of maps, images, linked reports, and text that present findings from the Nature Conservancy about the return on investment of planting urban trees to reduce summer temperatures and filter pollution from the air.
A variety of maps show which neighborhoods around the world can benefit most from tree planting to remove particulate matter from the air and/or improve air quality for the residents.
Teaching Tips
Positives
The interactive world maps are engaging and easy to manipulate.
The scroll-down design of the story makes it easy for students to move through the information at their own pace.
Additional Prerequisites
The map indicating the projected temperatures for 2040 shows the temperatures in Celsius, so students will need to know how to convert the values to Fahrenheit.
Students should be familiar with terms such as transpiration, return on investment, and mitigation.
Differentiation
Science, social studies, and geography classes could have students work in pairs or small groups to read one of the fifteen full reports on specific cities, which are linked in the the story map.
Environmental clubs or service clubs could use the map tools to identify nearby neighborhoods that would benefit from tree planting and work with officials to organize a tree planting event.
This resource accounts for the potential that nature has in cleaning the air and regulating the air temperatures. It examines tree planting as a cost-effective solution in mitigating impacts of pollution around neighborhoods. This is recommended for teaching.
Standards
This resource addresses the listed standards. To fully meet standards, search for more related resources.
Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS)
ESS3: Earth and Human Activity
MS-ESS3-3 Apply scientific principles to design a method for monitoring and minimizing a human impact on the environment.
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.
Common Core English Language Arts Standards (CCSS.ELA)
Reading: Science & Technical Subjects (6-12)
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RST.11-12.10 By the end of grade 12, read and comprehend science/technical texts in the grades 11-CCR text complexity band independently and proficiently.