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After the students have reviewed the above resources they will be able to list multiple ways humans are affected by the environment. When it comes to natural disasters or change in climate, students can name ways they can help reduce their carbon footprint and reduce pollution.

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Field trip: A trip to the Nature Center.

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Field trip: A trip to the Nature Center.

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Students can learn how humans affect more than just the world but other creatures living on earth and their environments. The class can also learn what they can do to help.

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Hours and fees

Baytown Nature Center is open daily all year round except Christmas, Thanksgiving and during extreme inclement weather. Gates open 30 minutes before sunrise and close 30 minutes after sunset.

There is an entrance fee of $4 for adults 13 and older. Children 5-12 and Seniors are $1.

Yearly passes may also be purchased for a fee of $30 per person or $65 per family.

Click here for BNC Rules and Regulations.

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﻿ Baytown Nature Center is open daily all year round except Christmas, Thanksgiving and during extreme inclement weather. Gates open 30 minutes before sunrise and close 30 minutes after sunset. There is an entrance fee of $4 for adults 13 and older. Children 5-12 and Seniors are $1.

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Video source: This video goes with the following activity.

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Video source: This video goes with the following activity.

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Here the student can learn about different types of disasters that plagues different places. This video shows the devastation in California. -students can question why this happened?
-how could this have been prevented.
-How are people affected by this.

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Whether it's this winter's California fires, this summer's devastating hurricanes, or routine blue sky flooding in Miami and Norfolk, the evidence is stacking up. Global warming, and its deadly consequences, are here and now.

For the PBS NewsHour, I'm Miles O'Brien.

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Climate change is part of California's perfect recipe for intense wildfire

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Long before the current devastation in California, scientists had built a strong case linking a changing climate to more wildfires. Since hotter weather promotes drought and drought increases the chances of fire, rising temperatures have intensified the risks. Science correspondent Miles O'Brien examines the specific conditions that have driven this winter's infernos.

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Students can use Well's account of what the world will be like in the future to deepen their understanding of how climate change is affecting humans. Cite: Wallace-Wells, David. The Uninhabitable Earth: Life after Warming. Tim Duggan Books, 2020.

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Miller dives into more than just how climate change is affecting people but how the disasters are affecting people. While students read they can learn about the politics of climate change. Though we are all affected by the changing environment and natural disasters, some social classes will be affected first. Miller, Todd. Storming the Wall: Climate Change, Migration, and Homeland Security. City Lights, 2017.

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This stock image of a hurricane can help students with their own mental pictures on ways climate change can affect us. They can even think about situations that may have affected them personally.

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Activity This activity is to help students engage with the TEKS.

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Activity This activity is to help students engage with the TEKS.

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This activity asks students to perform a few tasks in order to deepen their understanding of human and environment interactions through: -create graphs
-watch video
-read an article
-class discussion
Cite: National Geographic Society. “Natural Disasters and Climate Change.” National Geographic Society, 8 July 2020, www.nationalgeographic.org/activity/natural-disasters-and-climate-change/.

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1. Engage students in the topic by inviting them to share their knowledge of natural disasters. 2. Project the U.S. 2017 Billion-Dollar Weather and Climate Disasters Map from NOAA's Billion-Dollar Weather and Climate Disasters: Overview webpage. 3. Have students interpret graphs to understand patterns in the frequency of major natural disasters in the United States over time.
Ask students to give you examples of natural disasters, including floods, earthquakes, hurricanes, droughts, wildfires, tornadoes, landslides, volcanic eruptions, tsunamis, snowstorms, and severe thunderstorms. As a class, determine a working definition of the term natural disaster. Be sure the definition includes the key components of a natural disaster: a natural event or force that causes damage to property and/or loss of life. Have students look back at their list of examples. Ask: Which of these natural disasters are related to weather? (Answer: All in the list above are related in some way to weather except earthquakes, volcanoes, and tsunamis.)

Read or summarize the text under the heading "2017 in Context." Make sure students understand that the number of billion-dollar events in 2017 was significant because it was higher than both the historic and recent five-year average and because of its high economic impact. Point out that the costs of these disasters are calculated by considering property and infrastructure damage and business interruption. Medical costs and loss of life are not considered in the final number. Ask students to make observations about the map. Ask: What types of natural disasters are shown on the map? (Answer: droughts, wildfires, flooding, tornadoes, hurricanes, hailstorms, a freeze, and severe weather.) Ask: Did you hear about any of these natural disasters in the news? What would make these events newsworthy? (Answer: Depending on where students live, they may be familiar with any of these events, but the California wildfires and the three hurricanes were covered extensively in the national news. These events are newsworthy primarily because they resulted in great damage to property and possible loss of life.) Ask: What patterns do you notice in the locations of these events? (Answer: Students may notice some types of events seem to be grouped in certain parts of the country.) Ask: Why might such damaging disaster events happen in these locations? (Answer: Students may note some events affected densely populated cities, which might increase the amount of property damage. Similarly, they may observe that some occurred in agricultural areas, which may have affected crops and damaged the economy. What is important for them to recognize is that there could be multiple factors contributing to the costliness of these events.)
4. Watch a video about the 2017 California wildfires. 5. Have students research Hurricane Harvey and analyze evidence that climate change contributed to the severity of the flooding during the hurricane. 6. Discuss students' findings.
Scroll down to the 1980-2017 Year-to-Date United States Billion-Dollar Disaster Event Frequency graph. Ask students what variables are shown on the x and y axes of the graph ( x is months and y is the number of events). Ask: What do the colored and gray lines represent? (Answer: These lines represent specific years.) Ask: What does the black line represent? (Answer: The black line represents the average of all the years in the range represented on the graph.) Ask students to work with a partner to answer a few questions about the graph to ensure they are reading it correctly. They should navigate to the website on their own devices and write the answers to the following questions on a piece of scrap paper:

Why don't any of the lines on the graph decrease from left to right? (Answer: They show the cumulative, or total, number of events over the course of the year, so there can't be fewer events by December than there were in January.)

How many total billion-dollar disaster events were there in 1988? 1991? 2006? 2015? (Answer: 1, 4, 6, 10)

Walk around and check students' answers and address any problems with understanding. Then ask students what they observe about the graph. Ask: What general trend do you see? (Answer: They should see that the frequency of billion-dollar events is generally increasing over time.) Once students have identified that trend, challenge them by asking how that could be true, since there were more events in 1989 than there were in 2014. The key is for students to understand that a trend over time does not mean that every year will have more billion-dollar disaster events than the last. Ask students: What are some factors that may explain this general trend? (Answer: There are many reasons students might give, such as population growth, development into areas more at risk for natural disasters, sea-level rise, or climate change.) If students do not mention climate change, introduce the idea to them. Explain that while many factors contribute to any weather event, scientists agree that climate change in general is and will continue to lead to more extreme weather events-from droughts to flooding to hurricanes. Now scientists are increasingly looking at the role climate change is playing in specific disaster events. Review the basic causes and consequences of climate change before moving to the next step.

Tell students they are going to focus on two extreme weather-related disaster events and look for evidence that climate change played a role. Divide students into groups of two or three and distribute the Analyzing a Natural Disaster Event handout to each student. Go over the questions on the worksheet with students so they are familiar with them. Review the environmental conditions that make wildfires more likely. Show the first minute and 35 seconds of the PBS NewsHour Segment Climate change is part of California's perfect recipe for intense wildfire. Pause the video and ask students to briefly explain the evidence Park Williams gives linking climate change to an increase in wildfires generally. Explain that they will now watch and listen for evidence that climate change contributed to the California wildfires specifically. Continue playing the video. Ask students to just watch the first time through with the questions on the worksheet in mind, but not to try to complete the worksheet at this point. Pause the video frequently to discuss and check for understanding. Then replay the video, and this time ask students to complete the worksheet as they watch. Provide support for students as they work by pausing the video, rewinding, and modeling how to answer the questions as needed.

After students have completed the worksheet while watching Climate change is part of California's perfect recipe for intense wildfire, distribute another copy of the worksheet to each group. As a class, review the environmental conditions that lead to a hurricane. In groups, have students research Hurricane Harvey, and use the worksheet to analyze the effect climate change had on the flooding from the storm. Some useful websites are listed in the Resources for Further Exploration section.

Ask students to share their findings and conclusions with the class. Is there a consensus about the role of climate change in the extreme flooding from Hurricane Harvey? If not, what are the arguments for and against? Discuss the differences in the role climate change played in the California wildfires and the role it played in the flooding in Hurricane Harvey. Ask:

Do you think most hurricanes are affected by climate change? Why or why not?

Do you think most wildfires are affected by climate change? Why or why not?

Would these types of disaster events continue to occur even without climate change?

How might they be different?

What steps can we take to protect lives, property, and infrastructure as more extreme weather-related natural disaster events become more common?

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1. Engage students in the topic by inviting them to share their knowledge of natural disasters. 2. Project the U.S. 2017 Billion-Dollar Weather and Climate Disasters Map from NOAA's Billion-Dollar Weather and Climate Disasters: Overview webpage. 3. Have students interpret graphs to understand patterns in the frequency of major natural disasters in the United States over time.

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Guest speaker Video: Bert Drake lectures about what climate change means for humans. -What we have done. -How can we move forward.

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Guest speaker Video: Bert Drake lectures about what climate change means for humans. -What we have done. -How can we move forward.

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Cite: Drake, Bert. “Making Sense Of Climate Change 2 : Global Warming, Rising Seas and Extreme Weather.” Smithsonian Institution, 21 Feb. 2017, www.si.edu/object/making-sense-climate-change-2-global-warming-rising-seas-and-extreme-weather:yt_uWsqYdJWMsY?edan_q=climate%2Bchange%2Bweather.

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Object Details

Creator

Smithsonian Environmental Research Center

Video Title

Making Sense Of Climate Change 2 : Global Warming, Rising Seas and Extreme Weather

Description

Get the truth about climate change, with plant scientist Bert Drake of the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center. In this 6-part series, discover how we got here, how we move forward, and what climate change could mean for our food our coastlines and our homes. Learn more at https://serc.si.edu/making-sense-of-climate-change. Lecture 2: Global Warming, Rising Seas and Extreme Weather Discover how rising temperatures have the power to expand seas, increase flooding, and create weather and climate extremes. Credits: Opening images courtesy of NASA, Chesapeake Bay Program, USAID and the U.S. Department of Energy Thumbnail Image Courtesy of Chesapeake Bay Program Music: "Ruckus 3" by Dave Depper From The Free Music Archive Creative Commons license: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/

Views

1,539

Video Duration

37 min 39 sec

See more by

SmithsonianSERC

YouTube Channel

SmithsonianSERC

Smithsonian Environmental Research Center

Topic

Animal health;Environmental Sciences;Coastal ecology

Youtube Category

Science & Technology

Record ID

yt_uWsqYdJWMsY

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Making Sense Of Climate Change 2 : Global Warming, Rising Seas and Extreme Weather

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Creator Smithsonian Environmental Research Center Video Title Making Sense Of Climate Change 2 : Global Warming, Rising Seas and Extreme Weather Description Get the truth about climate change, with plant scientist Bert Drake of the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center.

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Website: The student can learn about climate change. -How climate change happens -How it affects the environment. -How it affects humans. -How humans affect the climate change.  

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Website: The student can learn about climate change. -How climate change happens -How it affects the environment. -How it affects humans. -How humans affect the climate change.  

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Cite:“What Are Climate and Climate Change?” ReadWorks, Nasa, www.readworks.org/article/What-Are-Climate-and-Climate-Change/4a2f34b9-f515-4f3e-9f61-c2b1f4bcf7ba.

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Improve your students' reading comprehension with ReadWorks. Access thousands of high-quality, free K-12 articles, and create online assignments with them for your students.

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In this map activity students can use a live map to view the changes in earth's temperature. They can toggle through the map to learn more as they follow the instructions provided.

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TEKS: 6.5a Geography. The student understands the impact of interactions between people and the physical environment on the development and conditions of places and regions. The student is expected to describe ways people have been impacted by physical processes such as earthquakes and climate;

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TEKS: 6.5a Geography. The student understands the impact of interactions between people and the physical environment on the development and conditions of places and regions. The student is expected to describe ways people have been impacted by physical processes such as earthquakes and climate;