This visualization explains in simple and easy-to-understand visuals the causes of sea-level change.

This activity allows students to explore sea level rise. The experiment allows them to test whether land ice and/or sea ice contribute to sea level rise as they melt.

SYNOPSIS: In this lesson, students learn about climate change, choose one impact of climate change affecting New Jersey, and write a claim-evidence-reasoning paragraph explaining why they believe it is the worst impact of climate change in New Jersey.

SCIENTIST NOTES: This lesson illustrates the impacts of climate change in New Jersey. Five video resources are presented that provide background information, answer skepticism, and explore four key implications of climate change in New Jersey. The four climate impact videos are well-sourced and address local concerns with scientists from Rutgers and the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection. Students are tasked with deciding which is the worst impact of climate change and then writing a paragraph to support their claim. This lesson is recommended for teaching.

POSITIVES:
-This lesson is terrific for teaching paragraph structure.
-The color coding of the sentences in the paragraph is really helpful, especially for concrete thinkers.

ADDITIONAL PREREQUISITES:
-This lesson shows some of the impacts of climate change. Some of these might be difficult to hear. Students may feel anger, sadness, anxiety, or grief after hearing about some of these devastating impacts. Encourage them to share their emotions.
-There is, of course, no right answer to “What’s the worst impact of climate change?” These impacts of climate change are all catastrophic in their own right.
-Encourage the students to use as many hard facts as possible in their supporting sentences. These include dates, names, places, and specific events.
-You can use 2-3 videos of impacts of climate change if you do not want to use all of them.
-Make sure students know that there are many other impacts of climate change aside from the four impacts in the four videos. Other impacts of climate change include extreme weather events, mass extinction, climate migration, etc. The goal of this lesson is to choose one of those four impacts of climate change.

DIFFERENTIATION:
-Most students will benefit from color coding their sentences. Encourage them to keep their text highlighted as they write. They can even keep their paragraphs highlighted after they finish.
-Weaker students may write only five sentences. Stronger students may expand more in their supporting sentences.
-If students are struggling with their closing sentences, ask them to read their claim sentences aloud. Sometimes this helps guide their thinking.
-Stronger students who finish early can read their paragraphs to one another, discuss the writing process, and discuss possible solutions to climate change.

This video reviews how increasing temperatures in the Arctic are affecting the path of the jet stream, the severity of storms, and the length of individual weather events (rain, storms, drought).

SYNOPSIS: This lesson encourages students to think about their food choices and where their food comes from.

SCIENTIST NOTES: The lesson introduces students to analyze the origin or source of their food and explore and track the factors that determines their food choices. This lesson provides understanding on the implications of our food choices on achieving food security. There are no scientific misconceptions in this lesson. On that account, this lesson has passed the science credibility process.

POSITIVES:
-This lesson gets students thinking about what they eat, why they eat what they do, and where some of those foods may come from.
-The guided research gives students independent time to explore where their favorite meal’s ingredients might come from.

ADDITIONAL PREREQUISITES:
-This is lesson 1 of 6 in our 6th-8th grade Climate Change, Food Production, and Food Security unit.
-Students should understand that healthy foods like fruits and vegetables provide certain vitamins and nutrients that junk food does not.
-Students should know the consequences of an imbalanced diet can include diabetes, obesity, and other health issues.
-Teachers should be mindful that some students might be sensitive to topics surrounding food tracking, diet, and body image.
-For students to access the Food Tracker, teachers can print the Google Document or assign a copy to all students digitally.

DIFFERENTIATION:
-If teachers choose to teach this lesson without teaching the following lessons in the unit, teachers can end the lesson by having students explore this climate change food calculator after completing their Food Trackers.
-Teachers can assign the Teacher Slideshow or Student Document on Google Classroom and students can submit their work independently.
-Teachers can group students for the guided research section and assign them level-appropriate resources.
-Teachers can eliminate options in the guided research section if the options are overwhelming.
-Teachers can review the Teacher Slideshow as a class and answer the questions as a whole class assignment.

This video from ClimateCentral looks at the way climate conditions can affect vegetation in the West, and what influence this has on wildfires. Drought and rainfall can have very different wildfire outcomes, depending on vegetation type, extent, and location.

This video segment examines the issue of climate change from the perspective of Native Americans. The video segment was adapted from a student video produced at Haskell Indian Nations University in Lawrence, Kansas.

This resource is based on the 2015 Climate Change Summit, and it shares both environmental and social concerns related to climate change. This is an activity for elementary school students to role-play. It is a UN-style discussion of climate change from different cultures and perspectives around the world.

This activity allows students to make El Nino in a container, but it might work better as a teacher demonstration. The introduction and information provided describe El Nino, its processes and its effects on weather elsewhere in the world.

This lesson guides students to connect the PBS Adaptation video series on climate adaptation to their own community. Students describe their community, identify climate impacts faced by their community, research how their community is adapting to those impacts, and then create a digital story about what they found.