More Extreme Heat in National Parks
Articles/Websites
Grades9, 10, 11, 12Biology, Earth and Space Sciences
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Provided by Climate Central
What it is
- In this article from Climate Central, students will learn how climate change affects national parks through colorful graphics, data about each National Park, and a discussion about how things might change in the future.
- Students will learn about the impacts like extreme heat, flooding, and wildfire smoke that impact the parks and people's ability to visit them.
Teaching tips
Positives
- This perspective may help students see how important climate action is for protecting the places they love.
- The graphics provide an excellent way for students to see the key points in the article at a glance.
Prerequisites
- When clicking on the Climate Change Impacts National Parks graphic, it may go to the More Extreme Heat in National Parks graphic. Users will have to toggle the dropdown menu to select the resource they want.
- Students should be familiar with climate change and climate projections. It may also be helpful for students to know terms such as wet bulb temperature, ocean acidification, phenology, and others.
Differentiation & Implementation
- Students can research and write about their favorite national park and how an increase in hot days and other climate impacts will impact their park and the plants and animals that live there.
- Students can write a poem about the importance of national parks and the importance of mitigating climate change.
- Students can create a guide to their favorite national parks and how to visit them safely, citing information from the graphics and text in the resource. This video may also provide helpful safety guidelines.
- This video can help students understand how the climate impacts discussed in this resource affect public health.
From the scientist review
This article discusses how climate change is resulting in more extreme heat days in US national parks. The article steps through why this is happening and how this will affect the parks and visitors. The article does a really nice job of providing references and explaining the methodology of referenced studies to the readers. Other impacts of climate change are also discussed. The information presented is accurate, and this resource is recommended for teaching.
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