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Watching the Land Temperature Bell Curve Heat Up (1950-2020)

Provided by: NASA |Published on: April 27, 2021

Videos Grades 6-8, 9-12

Synopsis

This brief video is an animation of land temperature anomaly distributions through time from 1950 to 2020.
Students will see that in the seventy-year period, hotter days have increased and colder days have decreased in regularity.

Related Teaching Resources

Subjects: Earth and Space Sciences, Mathematics

Authors: NASA

Region: Global

Languages: English

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Teaching Materials

Positives

The data clearly displays an increase in warmer than normal temperatures on land over time.
There is a link in the description to download the video and learn more about the methodology.

Additional Prerequisites

Students should know how to read a bell curve.
Students should know the terms normal distribution and anomaly.

Differentiation

Students can compare the data to this video on global warming data and this video on Greenland ice loss data.
A lesson related to this topic is Is Your City Getting Warmer?: Data Analysis in Google Sheets.
This other lesson can help students understand the differences between weather and climate.
Students can also do this activity where they analyze air temperature graphs.

Scientist Notes

Teaching Tips

Standards

Resource Type and Format

Related Teaching Resources

All resources can be used for your educational purposes with proper attribution to the content provider.