This news clip from NJ Spotlight News highlights the rapid rise in sea level already occurring in New Jersey and the risk of accelerated sea level rise in the future if greenhouse gas emissions are not reduced or halted.
Dr. Robert Kopp from Rutgers University explains that this increase in sea level rise will be associated with more frequent and more impactful flooding events.
Teaching Tips
Positives
The question and answer format of the interview will help students stay engaged.
The content focuses on the impacts of sea level rise on the Jersey Shore, but the content can be applied globally.
Additional Prerequisites
The content ends at 4 minutes, 6 seconds, with credits at the end.
Students should be familiar with the terms global warming and greenhouse gases.
Differentiation
This resource could be used as a hook for lessons about the phases of matter, the properties of water, density, or plate tectonics.
Students in the northeastern United States could use this resource as an example of the local effects of climate change and compare them to the global averages.
Science classes could use this experiment to help students understand the difference between melting glaciers and melting sea ice.
With a high confidence, this video presents how increases in atmospheric CO2 levels will accelerate sea level rise and high tide flooding events in New Jersey. It articulates the long-term benefits of limiting CO2 emissions, which is a major driver of climate change. This video is recommended for teaching.
Standards
Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS)
ESS3: Earth and Human Activity
MS-ESS3-2 Analyze and interpret data on natural hazards to forecast future catastrophic events and inform the development of technologies to mitigate their effects.
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.
PS1: Matter and its Interactions
MS-PS1-4 Develop a model that predicts and describes changes in particle motion, temperature, and state of a pure substance when thermal energy is added or removed.
Common Core English Language Arts Standards (CCSS.ELA)
Speaking & Listening (K-12)
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.SL.6.2 Interpret information presented in diverse media and formats (e.g., visually, quantitatively, orally) and explain how it contributes to a topic, text, or issue under study.
