Local Climate Snapshots

Local Climate Snapshots
https://beta.cal-adapt.org/tools/local-climate-change-snapshot

California Energy Commission

This interactive visualization provides a clear, well-documented snapshot of current and projected values of several climate variables for local areas in California. The climate variables include observed and projected temperatures, projected snowpack, areas vulnerable to flooding due to sea level rise, and projected increase in wildfires. The projected values come from expert sources and well-established climate models.

Learn more about Teaching Climate Literacy and Energy Awareness»

See how this Simulation/Interactive supports the Next Generation Science Standards»

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Middle School

Disciplinary Core Ideas: 6

MS-ESS2.D1: Weather and climate are influenced by interactions involving sunlight, the ocean, the atmosphere, ice, landforms, and living things. These interactions vary with latitude, altitude, and local and regional geography, all of which can affect oceanic and atmospheric flow patterns.

MS-ESS3.C1: Human activities have significantly altered the biosphere, sometimes damaging or destroying natural habitats and causing the extinction of other species. But changes to Earth’s environments can have different impacts (negative and positive) for different living things.

MS-ESS3.C2: Typically as human populations and per-capita consumption of natural resources increase, so do the negative impacts on Earth unless the activities and technologies involved are engineered otherwise.

MS-ESS3.C: Human Impacts on Earth Systems

MS-ESS3.D1: Human activities, such as the release of greenhouse gases from burning fossil fuels, are major factors in the current rise in Earth’s mean surface temperature (global warming). Reducing the level of climate change and reducing human vulnerability to whatever climate changes do occur depend on the understanding of climate science, engineering capabilities, and other kinds of knowledge, such as understanding of human behavior and on applying that knowledge wisely in decisions and activities.

MS-ESS3.D: Global Climate Change

Cross Cutting Concepts: 5

Stability and Change, Patterns, Cause and effect

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Stability and Change, Patterns, Cause and effect

MS-C1.4: Graphs, charts, and images can be used to identify patterns in data.

MS-C2.2: Cause and effect relationships may be used to predict phenomena in natural or designed systems.

MS-C2.3: Phenomena may have more than one cause, and some cause and effect relationships in systems can only be described using probability.

MS-C7.3: Stability might be disturbed either by sudden events or gradual changes that accumulate over time.

MS-C7.4: Systems in dynamic equilibrium are stable due to a balance of feedback mechanisms.

Science and Engineering Practices: 1

Asking Questions and Defining Problems

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High School

Disciplinary Core Ideas: 9

HS-ESS2.D : Weather and Climate

HS-ESS2.D3: Changes in the atmosphere due to human activity have increased carbon dioxide concentrations and thus affect climate.

HS-ESS2.D4: Current models predict that, although future regional climate changes will be complex and varied, average global temperatures will continue to rise. The outcomes predicted by global climate models strongly depend on the amounts of human-generated greenhouse gases added to the atmosphere each year and by the ways in which these gases are absorbed by the ocean and biosphere.

HS-ESS2.E1: The many dynamic and delicate feedbacks between the biosphere and other Earth systems cause a continual co-evolution of Earth’s surface and the life that exists on it.

HS-ESS2.E: Biogeology

HS-ESS3.C1: The sustainability of human societies and the biodiversity that supports them requires responsible management of natural resources.

HS-ESS3.D1: Though the magnitudes of human impacts are greater than they have ever been, so too are human abilities to model, predict, and manage current and future impacts.

HS-ESS3.D2: Through computer simulations and other studies, important discoveries are still being made about how the ocean, the atmosphere, and the biosphere interact and are modified in response to human activities.

HS-ESS3.D: Global Climate Change

Cross Cutting Concepts: 7

Patterns, Cause and effect, Stability and Change

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Patterns, Cause and effect, Stability and Change

HS-C1.5: Empirical evidence is needed to identify patterns.

HS-C2.1: Empirical evidence is required to differentiate between cause and correlation and make claims about specific causes and effects.

HS-C2.2: Cause and effect relationships can be suggested and predicted for complex natural and human designed systems by examining what is known about smaller scale mechanisms within the system.

HS-C2.4: Changes in systems may have various causes that may not have equal effects.

HS-C7.2: Change and rates of change can be quantified and modeled over very short or very long periods of time. Some system changes are irreversible.

HS-C7.3: Feedback (negative or positive) can stabilize or destabilize a system.

HS-C7.4: Systems can be designed for greater or lesser stability.

Climate Literacy

This Simulation/Interactive builds on the following concepts of Climate Literacy.

Click a topic below for supporting information, teaching ideas, and sample activities.

Energy Literacy

This Simulation/Interactive builds on the following concepts of Energy Literacy.

Click a topic below for supporting information, teaching ideas, and sample activities.

Notes From Our Reviewers The CLEAN collection is hand-picked and rigorously reviewed for scientific accuracy and classroom effectiveness. Read what our review team had to say about this resource below or learn more about how CLEAN reviews teaching materials
Teaching Tips | Science | Pedagogy | Technical Details

Teaching Tips

This interactive contains only California data. It will be of value only to educators in California or to those using California climate as an example.
Educators may wish to develop a set of questions that students use this tool to answer.
It is one of 9 useful tools/maps provided on the cal-adapt.org website http://cal-adapt.org/tools/. The maps are similar in design but display different data sets and parameters.

About the Content

The visualization uses an interactive map to locate the area of interest and different map overlays to convey the information.
Comment from expert scientist: An important message (regional variability of climate change and its impacts) is delivered in an easy-to-understand way that motivates students to find out relations (e.g. to altitude) or look for their favorite places (home, holiday).

About the Pedagogy

The map interface provides an effective way to contextualize the exploration of these data sets by students.
Students can click on their local area or others across the state to access graphical information.
The webpage also includes related stories.
While the focus in this visually appealing interactive is on displaying the basic climate variables for a California region, it also offers a wealth of supporting materials about climate.

This resource engages students in using scientific data.
See other data-rich activities

Technical Details/Ease of Use

While a lot of information is conveyed by this interactive, its state-of-the-art design, graphics, and technical operation make it easy to use. It should work on any modern web-browser that runs Javascript and CSS well.

Entered the Collection: October 2018 Last Reviewed: May 2016

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Middle School (see details)

Middle School

Disciplinary Core Ideas: 6

Cross Cutting Concepts: 5

Science and Engineering Practices: 1

High School (see details)

High School

Disciplinary Core Ideas: 9

Cross Cutting Concepts: 7

Science and Engineering Practices: 1

Grade Level

Regional Focus

Topics

Climate Literacy

Energy Literacy

Teaching Tips

About the Content

About the Pedagogy

Technical Details/Ease of Use

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