Hurricanes and Climate Change Educator Guide

This Guide for Educators was developed by the MIT Environmental Solutions Initiative as an extension of our TILclimate (Today I Learned: Climate) podcast, to make it easier for you to teach climate change, earth science, and energy topics in the classroom. It is an extension of the TILclimate episode "TIL about hurricanes."

Browse all TILclimate guides for educators.

Description

Hurricanes are a fact of life for millions of Americans each year, and billions more people around the world. What is a hurricane, and how can we prepare for them? Through a model and student-level data, students explore the factors influencing storm frequency and intensity. They also consider the language of storms, as well as steps to resilience.

SWBAT:

• Explain that hurricanes are influenced by sea surface temperatures, moisture, wind, and other factors.

• Understand that increased heat in the atmosphere, ocean, and land are changing the frequency and intensity of hurricanes.

• Name a few concepts for hurricane resilience.

Skills:

• Modeling

• Graphing

• Discussion

Standards:

• HS-ESS2-2 Analyze geoscience data to make the claim that one change to Earth’s surface can create feedbacks that cause changes to other Earth systems.

• HS-ESS3-5 Analyze geoscience data and the results from global climate models.

• HS-ETS1-2 Design a solution to a complex real-world problem by breaking it down into smaller, more manageable problems that can be solved through engineering.

• RST.11-12.9 Synthesize information from a range of sources into a coherent understanding of a process, phenomenon, or concept.

• HSN-Q.A.2 Define appropriate quantities for the purpose of descriptive modeling.

Disciplinary core ideas:

• ESS2.A Earth Materials and Systems

• ESS2.D Weather and Climate

• ESS3.D Global Climate Change

What is included in this Educator Guide

1. How to use TILclimate Educator Guides (Download)
    
2. Full Educator Guide (Download)
   • Includes both Teacher and Student pages
      
3. Teacher pages (Download)
   • Includes materials, discussion questions, background resources, and adaptation suggestions for science, social science, and ELA teachers
   • gobbledegook
      
4. Student pages (Download)
   • Interactive: Model A Hurricane (online)
      
   • Communication Challenge: Words for Hurricanes
      
   • Data Investigation: Hurricane Historical Data
      
   • Case Studies: Hurricane Resilience
      
5. Data for "Hurricane Historical Data" activity (Download)

Listen to the episode

Browse all TILclimate guides for educators