Climate Changes and Ecosystems

Great for distance learning!

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California's climate has changed over the past 100 years as rainfall amounts have steadily decreased. This collaborative and engaging resource makes the connection between changing climates and the effects these changes have on ecosystems. Students begin with an overview introduction to climates and climate change before working collaboratively with a group to create ideas of how climate change affects both living and nonliving parts of ecosystems. Group discussion and questions to follow.

Next, students create a graphic organizer displaying how droughts affects plants and animals in ecosystems. Students then move on to a case study of climate change and ecosystems as they create two different bar graphs of rainfall averages in Los Angeles, California over a one-hundred-year period. Finally, students compare the data and answer questions.

This resource is aligned with and supports NGSS standard 5-LS2.

Science Practices-

Analyzing and interpreting data

Using mathematics and computational thinking.

Core Content –

Interdependent relationships in ecosystems

Crosscutting Concepts –

Patterns

Cause and effect

Stability and change of systems