Teach About Climate Change With These 24 New York Times Graphs
In this teaching resource, we have gathered 24 graphs previously published elsewhere in The New York Times that relate to climate change. In the first section, we discuss teaching strategies for using these graphs in the classroom. In the second section, we present a collection of graphs organized by topic: melting ice, rising seas, changing ocean temperature, changing air temperature, rising carbon emissions, impacts on humans, intensifying storms and contradicting attitudes. _________ Each week in , we spotlight an engaging graph previously published elsewhere in The Times and pair it with a simple set of questions: What do you notice? What do you wonder? What do you think is going on in this graph? On Wednesdays, teachers from the provide live facilitation in our comments section to respond to students as they post analyses and consider what story the graph is telling. Then, at the end of the week, we add an end-of-activity reveal that shares the original article containing the graph, highlights from the moderation, related statistical concepts and helpful vocabulary. The philosophy behind our approach is to let students begin analyzing graphs with the skills they will most naturally and successfully use simple noticing and wondering. From there, students can simultaneously build confidence and acquire new conceptual understanding. Over time, as their critical thinking skills develop and their vocabulary grows, students analyses become more sophisticated. Below, we detail step-by-step instructions for how to adapt this approach to teaching with graphs to your classroom, and we provide examples from students who have participated in our weekly conversations about climate change-related graphs. In this , Sharon Hessney, the curator of Whats Going On in This Graph?, describes the benefits of the Notice & Wonder approach: Noticing and wondering has a low floor and a high ceiling. Every student can notice something in a graph. There are dots on it; its about different countries. As they hear each others noticings, they dig deeper. Theyll discover more by comparing and contrasting aspects of the graph and by relating these noticings to the world they know. So, what can simply noticing look like in action? Here are examples of what students noticed about the above graph about summer temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere. I noticed that the graph is only focusing on the summer temperatures, and not the overall temperatures. The base year has a 29-year difference while the other years have a 10-year difference. The graph does not cover the years 1981-1982. I noticed that as the years go by, the mean or the center of the graph shifts farther to the right. This upward trend seems to be in a stage of rapid acceleration and I wonder if it will continue to increase at the same rate in the coming years. I noticed that as the years went on the temperatures became hot and extremely hot more frequently. I also noticed that the distribution of the temperatures starts as an approximately symmetric distribution and becomes skewed right over the years. Discussing what students notice and wonder, either online or in the classroom, is an important part of the learning process. Ms. Hessney recommends: We think the best practice for doing Whats Going on in This Graph? is first, for students to converse about what they notice and wonder either individually or in small groups, and then to discuss as a whole class. By hearing other peoples ideas, students form more and deeper stories from the graph. Here are examples of student wonderings about the same graph. I wonder if the progressing extreme heat will affect our animals and even, human beings. Will this affect us in dangerous ways? For example, will we die from heat stroke, Will the water sources dry up and the animals die of thirst? These are my wonders for this graph. We wonder what extremely cold, normal etc. means in terms of temperatures. We also wondered if there were outliers at all. It seems like there were outliers on the hot side and then outliers on the cold side. We wonder if something similar is happening in the southern hemisphere and if this type of trend happens in the winter, too. We also wonder if these are actual temperatures and where was the data gathered cities, country, novice weather people as opposed to trained weather people We think that global warming is being illustrated by this graph. An essential part of our approach to teaching with graphs is that students dont do their thinking in a vacuum. On The Learning Network, moderators from the American Statistical Association provide students with feedback on their comments. Plus, students get to read what others have to say, and have a chance to reply as well whether they are in the same classroom or on the other side of the globe. In the screen shot below, you can see a student, Madison from New Jersey, responding to Christian in Pittsburgh. One of the questions Madison asks is, Are these the effects of naturally increasing temperatures, or the doing of man made emissions? Just like photographs, graphs tell stories. After students have noticed and wondered, we ask them: Whats going on in this graph? What story can it tell? Here are some examples of the comments students made about the above graph about winter temperatures. This graph shows that although the average winter temperature in the US is not increasing at a steady rate, overall the temperatures are getting warmer with time. This is in favour of the discussion about climate change causing global warming. This graph depicts how the winter temperatures from the 1900s differ from the 2000s. And how the temperatures are gradually getting warmer. This could be happening due to global warming or maybe how they say the sun is gradually getting closer and closer to our planet. From brief observations, I can conclude that this is a graph depicting the differences between the average winter temperature in 1900 and the present average winter temperature at the time. Because of this, Im curious if an increase in air pollution, carbon dioxide, and deforestation is responsible for the overall increase of winter temperatures on Earth. This graph could capture how pollution and an increase of carbon dioxide within the atmosphere because the gas prevents small bits of heat from the sun from escaping the Earths atmosphere, forcing it to bounce back to the Earths surface as more thermal energy from the sun reaches our planet. A similar phenomenon has been present on Venus, which, due to the gases within Venus atmosphere capturing the majority of thermal energy from the sun, has made Venus the hottest planet in the Solar System. This past summer Robert Lochel, a math teacher in the Hatboro-Horsham School District, mentioned to us that he always asked students to write a catchy headline after they were done noticing and wondering. We liked the idea so much, we added it to our weekly protocol. Here are a few examples of students headlines about the graph above. You Thought This Winter Was Cold? Check This Graph, by Nathan of Virginia Is Earth on the Hot Seat?, by Kero K. and Jon I. from Hampton High School Dreaming of a Green Christmas, by Isaac from Hampton High School Doomsday Deviation, by Michael, Harper, Joseph and Owen from Hampton High School _________ The graph above illustrates across 1.4 million lakes in the Northern Hemisphere. It is one of scores of graphs related to climate change that The Times has published in the last few years. We hope that by collecting a selection of these graphs in one place, organized by topic and accompanied by links to the original Times articles, we are providing teachers with a valuable resource for teaching about climate trends. With any one of these graphs, you can have students notice, wonder and do the sequence of strategies recommended above. And here is one more teaching idea: Choose a handful of these graphs and ask students to select the one they think is most valuable for teaching the general public about Earths changing climate. Then they can explain why they selected that graph. | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Students studying climate change might have other data sets in mind they would like to see graphed. For example, perhaps they are interested in retreating glaciers or regional changes in precipitation. You could have students research topics that interest them, find relevant quantitative data and create their own graphs. We would love to hear about any climate change-related graphs your students create or about topics you would like to see The Times illustrate in graphs. Post in our comments, or write to us at LNFeedback@nytimes.com and if your students make some great graphs, be sure to send us photos too since we would love to show them off on our site and on social media. _________