Understanding Climate Change and the Role of Nature in Creating Resilience

The Nature Conservancy

This comprehensive resource presents an entire 6 part unit for understanding major themes in climate change including common misperceptions, global and seasonal trends, and disproportionate risk to climate change by category.

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Notes from our reviewers

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Teachers could also bring attention to the types of resources that are being used to support this lesson plan (i.e., from government websites or educational institutions). It may be challenging to plan for this unit within a larger curriculum. This is especially true for non-AP classes in biology, social studies, or an integrated curriculum. This would do well as a part in an AP Environmental Sciences class.
Students will use resources from the EPA, NASA, and NOAA to dispel climate change myths, collect and interpret data, and explore areas of interest on a map. Students will also use data-driven maps to answer questions about climate model projections and anticipated risk, and explore nature-based solutions to climate problems such as sea-level rise and storm-surge. The presented maps use real historical data from direct and indirect measurements. Passed initial science review - expert science review pending.
Students will use a variety of online resources, interactive maps, articles, and videos to understand the measurements and effects of climate change. This resource presents information in a logical sequence where each subsequent concept builds on the previous lesson. Students are challenged to do independent research to understand and personalize their understanding of climate change. This is a robust unit of 6 lessons that leads students to conclusions about resilience in the face of current and inevitable climate change scenarios. It is best suited for an AP Environmental Science (APES) course due to both the complexity and detail in the lessons and the length of time needed to get through all 6 lessons. All lessons are tied together so it would be difficult to pick and choose between them, though lesson 6 might be a single lesson if students are already proficient with global climate change factors and dynamics.
Several links included in this resource are no longer accessible. This resource can still be used in a classroom setting with alternative links, however, educators should be aware that they may need to select alternative resources, or have students provide their own. [link http://www.arcgis.com/home/item.html?id=d4a2705a8b224e71961404542ae94c6f 'This ArcGIS link'] is no longer working. [link https://www.smithsonianmag.com/videos/category/science/what-is-the-anthropocene/ 'New Smithsonian Magazine link'] [link https://www.climatecentral.org/states-of-change#/nation 'This Climate Central link'] is no longer working. [link https://csi.climatecentral.org/climate-shift-index 'New Wxclimshift link']