Climate Resilience Toolkit

Articles/Websites

Grades8, 9, 10, 11, 12, APEarth and Space Sciences, Geography, Engineering

Scientist Reviewed

Provided by NOAA

Open Resource

What it is

This overview of the toolikit provides articles, videos, maps, reports, and other information about the threats of climate change and the vulnerabilities of communities.
Students will learn about what climate resilience is, how to improve it, and how different parts of the country are impacted by climate change differently.

Teaching tips

Positives

This resource is a wealth of information about climate resilience and could be used to facilitate an entire unit.
Students will benefit from the layout of this toolkit, as it is broken into manageable parts that build upon the previous sections.

Additional Prerequisites

Before using this toolkit, be sure that students have a basic understanding of climate change and the threats that a changing climate poses.

Differentiation

Cross-curricular connections can be made in health classes considering how human health will be impacted by climate change.
This resource is an excellent place for preliminary reading and learning about many topics dealing with climate change.
This resource would work well for student research projects, where each student has a different aspect of the resource to learn about and create a written or digital products to showcase their learning.
The regional reports are especially beneficial when talking about how climate change is impacting different areas of the United States or they can be used for students to study resilience where they live.

From the scientist review

This resource from Climate.gov is a wide-ranging toolkit designed to teach the facts of climate change and to provide a framework for building climate resilience. The toolkit is based around the five steps to resilience and features reports, case studies, and a wealth of data. The climate explorer tool is a wonderful resource that shows historic and projected conditions for every county in the contiguous United States, providing an opportunity for students to see climate change in their own hometowns and project what future threats may impact their community. For students studying geography, an ArcGIS tutorial is included with a focus on community action, urban planning, and natural resource management. This resource is filled with up-to-date climate data and tools to aid in planning for climate resilience, and is recommended for teaching.

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Hosted on toolkit.climate.gov

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At a glance

Grades: 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, AP
Subjects: Earth and Space Sciences, Geography, Engineering
Other types: Videos, Data, Graphs, and Maps, Interactive Media, Scientific Reports
Language: English
Location: North America, North America > United States
Provider: NOAA
Authors: NOAA
Published: July 24, 2023
Last updated: July 16, 2026
: Reviewed by our climate scientists How we review

Standards alignment · D2.Civ.10.6-8 + 17 more

Core

College, Career, and Civic Life (C3) Standards

D2.Civ.10.6-8Explain the relevance of personal interests and perspectives, civic virtues, and democratic principles when people address issues and problems in government and civil society.
D2.Geo.12.6-8Explain how global changes in population distribution patterns affect changes in land use in particular places.
D2.Geo.10.3-5Explain why environmental characteristics vary among different world regions.
D2.Geo.2.3-5Use maps, satellite images, photographs, and other representations to explain relationships between the locations of places and regions and their environmental characteristics.
D2.Geo.4.9-12Analyze relationships and interactions within and between human and physical systems to explain reciprocal influences that occur among them.

Common Core English Language Arts Standards (CCSS.ELA)

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.3.1Ask and answer questions to demonstrate understanding of a text, referring explicitly to the text as the basis for the answers.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.3.1Ask and answer questions to demonstrate understanding of a text, referring explicitly to the text as the basis for the answers.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RST.11-12.2Determine the central ideas or conclusions of a text; summarize complex concepts, processes, or information presented in a text by paraphrasing them in simpler but still accurate terms.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RST.11-12.4Determine the meaning of symbols, key terms, and other domain-specific words and phrases as they are used in a specific scientific or technical context relevant to grades 11-12 texts and topics.

Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS)

MS-ESS3-5.Ask questions to clarify evidence of the factors that have caused the rise in global temperatures over the past century.

New Jersey Climate Education Hub

English Language Arts

RI.IT.8.3Analyze how particular elements of a text interact (e.g., how contexts influence individuals or events, or how individuals influence ideas or events) across multiple text types, including across literary and informational texts.
RI.CR.11–12.1Accurately cite a range of thorough textual evidence and make relevant connections to strongly support a comprehensive analysis of multiple aspects of what an informational text says explicitly and inferentially, as well as interpretations of the text.

Science

3-ESS3-1.Make a claim about the merit of a design solution that reduces the impacts of a weather-related hazard.
4-ESS3-2.Generate and compare multiple solutions to reduce the impacts of natural Earth processes on humans.
HS-ESS3-1.Construct an explanation based on evidence for how the availability of natural resources, occurrence of natural hazards, and changes in climate have influenced human activity.
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’s systems.
HS-ESS3-6.Use a computational representation to illustrate the relationships among Earth systems and how those relationships are being modified due to human activity.

Social Studies

6.1.8.CivicsPI.3.c:Distinguish the powers and responsibilities of citizens, political parties, interest groups, and the media in a variety of governmental and nongovernmental contexts.

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