Land: A Tour of Drought

• This reading explores the predicted effects of drought due to global warming in Canada, Sub-Saharan Africa, China, and Australia.
  
• This reading puts into perspective the uniqueness of Earth's climate, compares it to Mars, and highlights the importance of solving climate change to prevent prolonged or severe droughts in the future.
  

Positives

• Through a series of case studies, students learn about how different climates, like deserts and grasslands, are affected by drought.
• Students can use the interactive maps to visualize the likelihood of a year-plus drought in different regions of the world at 1°C and 3°C of warming.

Additional Prerequisites

• This resource is the third part of a four-part series on land but it can be read as a standalone.
• Students should have a general understanding of climate change and its effects on weather patterns.
• Students should understand terms like climate and precipitation and have a general understanding of different biomes, including grasslands, steppes, deserts, savannahs, and shrublands.

Differentiation

• This resource can be used in geography classes during lessons about how different climates affect development factors, such as poverty and conflict, and in social studies classes during lessons about how humans will be affected by the increasingly limited availability of natural resources, such as water, due to climate change.
• For more advanced students and older age groups, use this interactive tool to explore the topic of planetary boundaries and this article to learn about doughnut economics. 
• Science classes can use this article to connect to lessons about the water cycle, weather patterns, and evapotranspiration.
  

This resource addresses the listed standards. To fully meet standards, search for more related resources.