Students will identify and describe the relationship between land cover classification and surface temperature as they relate to the urban heat island effect. Students will also describe patterns between population density and the locations of urban heat islands.
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Students will analyze how surface (skin) temperatures vary across a community and determine what factors contribute to this variation. Students will describe how human activity can affect the local environment.
Students explore positive feedback effects of changing albedo from melting Arctic sea ice.
Students interpret a graph of surface temperatures taken from city districts and other types of communities.
This unit plan is published by the NASA Climate Change Research Initiative's (CCRI) Applied Research STEM Curriculum Portfolio. The CCRI Unit Plan, called “Urban Surface Temperatures and the Urban Heat Island Effects,“ has the purpose to educate students how climate is changi
The Urban Heat Island Implementation Sequence provides a series of lessons and activities for students to learn about the processes that create differences in surface temperatures, as well as how human activities have led to the creation of urban heat islands.
Students review a video that models the global impact of smoke from fires to develop an understanding of how models can be used to interpret and forecast phenomena in the Earth System.
Students analyze the data and details of a complicated graph by identifying components and data patterns.
Compare a histogram and map to determine the differences in the information conveyed in each data display.
Learners will analyze and interpret a box plot and evaluate the spread of the data. Learners will compare it with a different visualization of the data to see how the two compare, discuss the limitations of the two types of data displays and formulate questions.