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This PBS Learning Media activity addresses drought basics, including its causes and impacts and ways to assess it, by using media from NOAA and NASA. It defines the types of drought, the impacts, monitoring, and responses to drought. Use this resource to stimulate thinking and questions on the complexity of drought and to identify some variables used in defining drought.

Learn more about Teaching Climate Literacy and Energy Awareness»


Grade Level

Regional Focus

Topics

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

  • Material includes Teaching Tips and prepared Discussion Questions. Suggested Teaching Tips are sparse, but the material would be a good supplement for a prepared drought lesson.
  • Slideshow has 15 slides with roughly two paragraphs of text per slide.
  • If students are interested in more information about a climate science topic they can explore other resources directly from the homepage.

About the Content

  • In this slideshow students learn about five types of drought, their causes, and impacts on the continental USA. Students learn the difference between drought, aridity, and water shortage through text, real-life examples, and figures. Slides include graphs and animations from cited sources that include NASA, USDA, NOAA, and USDM—however there is not a link to the original material.
  • Comments from expert scientist: This is a great holistic overview of drought types, causes and impacts. The resource introduces ENSO and includes several scientific plots/visualizations from scientific models but I noticed a few of the images did not include a source.

About the Pedagogy

  • This resource could be used as a whole group presentation/lecture or assigned as an independent study.
  • The format is good for visual learners, due to its balance of text and images. However, students cannot interact directly with the graphs/figures/maps on each slide beyond clicking to step through the slides and hit play on the embedded videos.
  • This presentation is more powerful when put with other resources in the multimedia series and provides good background for student investigations. Great introduction to drought with natural drivers and cascading efforts.
  • The activity does not list any prerequisite knowledge or skill.
  • Correlations to standards indicated on the website are elaborate and may not accurately reflect standards addressed in the activity.

Technical Details/Ease of Use

  • Slideshow is easy to follow and use while being free of distractions.
  • Integrated share to Google Classrooms button.
  • Also can be assigned through Remind, social media platforms, or with the PBS LearningMedia Lesson Builder Tool.
Entered the Collection: April 2021 Last Reviewed: March 2020

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