Coastal Heritage Curriculum Connection
Explore Curriculum Connection guides, which are written to accompany each issue of Coastal Heritage, a quarterly publication of the S.C. Sea Grant Consortium.
Coastal Heritage, Winter 2007 issue: Rising Tide: Will Climate Change Drown Coastal Wetlands?
Focus Questions
- Will I be affected by climate change? If so, how?
- How is the rest of the world affected by climate change?
Use the Curriculum Connection to address these South Carolina Curriculum Standards
5th Grade
5-3.6: Explain how human activity (including conservation efforts and pollution) has affected the land and the oceans of Earth.
8th Grade
8-3.9: Identify and illustrate geologic features of South Carolina and other regions of the world through the use of imagery (including aerial photography and satellite imagery) and topographic maps.
High School
ES-4.6: Summarize possible causes of and evidence for past and present global climate changes.
ES-4.7: Summarize the evidence for the likely impact of human activities on the atmosphere (including ozone holes, greenhouse gases, acid rain, and photochemical smog).
Lesson Links
Exploring the Atmosphere-Hydrosphere Interaction
Making Observations and Inferences
- Students read topological maps of their neighborhood to predict the effect of sea level rise due to global warming. http://umassk12.net/~global/index_files/TopoMap_LessonPlan.doc
- Students extrapolate the effects of climate change to the effects of coastal areas around the world. They identify places prone to flood around the globe and compare these places with the locations of night lights over the Earth.http://earth.rice.edu/activities/earthupdate/activities/EUactivities/activity05.html
Global Warming: Early Warning Signs
- Visit this website to access additional information on the local and regional consequences of climate change. This resource includes a curriculum guide of activities for teaching about climate change over temporal and spatial timescales, as well as its effect on ecosystems and disease. http://www.climatehotmap.org/index.html
Exploring Climate Change from an systems-approach
- Visit the Exploratorium’s Global Climate Change-Research Explorer webpage to learn more about the interactions among the spheres in the Earth System affecting global climate change. Here you can access graphs and charts (along with clear explanations), online glossary of terms and up-to-date articles related to global climate change. This is your one-stop Global Climate Change shop! http://www.exploratorium.edu/climate/index.html
Collecting Evidence
Do your students need more experience interpreting graphs? Have your students investigate climate changes by analyzing ice core data from Greenland and Antarctica dating back thousands of years. Students use information about natural and anthropogenic changes in the atmosphere to formulate predictions about the Earth’s climate. http://tea.armadaproject.org/activity/leppik/gettingtothecoreofclimatechange_main.html
- Investigating Climate Change over Time. NOAA’s Office of Paleoclimatology offers a look at climate change from past centuries through the past millennia. Scientists from around the world contribute to this study of past climate in hopes of achieving a better understanding of the Earth’s present and future climate. http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/globalwarming/home.html
- Independent Research Projects. Need ideas for a summative assessment on climate change? Visit the EPA’s web site on Climate Change. The site is a comprehensive resource with accessible information covering climate change from many different perspectives and interests. http://epa.gov/climatechange/index.html