Hurricanes and Climate Change

Lesson Plans

Grades6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12Earth and Space Sciences, Engineering, Computer Science

Scientist Reviewed

Provided by MIT Environmental Solutions Initiative

Open Resource

What it is

This resource about hurricanes and climate change includes a lesson plan, student worksheet, podcast, discussion, interactive computer modeling, and a graphing and data analysis exercise.
Students will learn about how hurricanes form, the economic costs of these storms, how climate change is making these storms more extreme, and what some coastal communities are doing to adapt.

Teaching tips

Positives

The podcast provides a great explanation of the science behind hurricane formation.
The educator guide can help incorporate this topic into many subject areas including science, math, English language arts, and design.

Additional Prerequisites

Students should know how to graph data.
A timestamped transcript accompanies the podcast for offline use.

Differentiation

The economic costs of hurricanes are discussed, which could be used to open a conversation on trade-offs between the costs of climate change and the costs to implement solutions.
To add a more personal component that students could connect to, explore these Youth Climate Stories from Florida, Puerto Rico, and North Carolina.
Other resources on hurricanes include the lesson plan Hurricanes, the NOAA Hurricane Tracker, and the video How Climate Change Has Intensified Hurricane Season.

From the scientist review

This resource includes a podcast in which an MIT expert is interviewed and discusses the relationship between tropical cyclones (a.k.a. hurricanes) and our changing climate. The interactions between the atmosphere and the ocean are discussed, and the impact of sea level rise and storm surges on coastal communities is examined. A transcript and educator's guide, along with additional resource links, are provided. This resource is recommended for teaching.

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At a glance

Grades: 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12
Subjects: Earth and Space Sciences, Engineering, Computer Science
Other types: Data, Graphs, and Maps, Worksheets, Interactive Media, Podcasts
Format: PDF
Language: English
Location: Earth
Provider: MIT Environmental Solutions Initiative
Authors: MIT Environmental Solutions Initiative
Published: April 27, 2021
Last updated: July 16, 2026
: Reviewed by our climate scientists How we review

Standards alignment · CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RST.11-12.9 + 3 more

Core

Common Core English Language Arts Standards (CCSS.ELA)

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RST.11-12.9Synthesize information from a range of sources (e.g., texts, experiments, simulations) into a coherent understanding of a process, phenomenon, or concept, resolving conflicting information when possible.

New Jersey Climate Education Hub

Science

MS-ESS3-2.Analyze and interpret data on natural hazards to forecast future catastrophic events and inform the development of technologies to mitigate their effects.
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 to make an evidence-based forecast of the current rate of global or regional climate change and associated future impacts to Earth’s systems.

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Teaching tips

From the scientist review

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