Lessons and Standards

8th Grade Summary 

Middle school students learn about climate change, with a focus on heat islands, and explore ways to create a more resilient community now and in the future.

On our first day, we travel to the San Diego River Park, where you meet the Ocean Discovery staff and participate in a fun community-building challenge to see how many things we have in common! Turns out we have lots of things in common but also have a few traits that make us unique.

Throughout the morning, we will learn about heat islands and their potential effects on us and the community. We will spend time exploring and collecting evidence about how the San Diego River Park was built by urban planners to combat the effect of heat islands. We look at how the amount of green space has evolved since the park’s construction and how landscape architects intentionally chose each feature of the park to lessen the impacts of climate change. 

 On our final day, Ocean Discovery will join our classroom, and we will explore the question: Are there heat islands around our school? We will collect evidence using temperature tools and GPS to create a GIS heat map! Our data input will take all our information and color code it so that we can look at a school map and see where there are heat islands! We then get to take on the role of landscape architect and provide input for how to improve the school grounds. 

NGSS Alignment:

Performance Expectations

MS-ESS3-5: Ask questions to clarify evidence of the factors that have caused the rise in global temperatures over the past century.

HS-ESS3-6: Use a computational representation to illustrate the relationships among Earth systems and how those relationships are being modified due to human activity.

DCI

ESS3.D: Global Climate Change: 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.

ESS2.D Weather and Climate: 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. 

Crosscutting Concepts
Systems and System Models – students understand that a system is a group of related parts that make up a whole and can carry out functions its individual parts cannot. They can also describe a system in terms of its components and their interactions.

Stability and Change – Stability might be disturbed either by sudden events or gradual changes that accumulate over time.

Lesson Media: 

Schedules

Additional Resources