Climate & Water Teaching Box
Recent climate change is already having impacts - from melting Arctic sea ice and glaciers, to the lack of rainfall in the southwest and central United States, and the impacts of sea level rise on coasts worldwide. This teaching box is filled with explorations and readings that help secondary students learn how climate change is affecting the water cycle.
Teaching Boxes are themed collections of classroom-ready educational resources to build student understanding of science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM). Resources highlighted within teaching boxes are from various science education programs and all have been vetted by the education team at the UCAR Center for Science Education.
- Topic: Climate & Water
- Level: Middle and high school
- How to use this resource: This teaching box is designed to foster understanding of the impacts of climate change on aspects of the water cycle. The first part (The Big Picture) provides an overview and should be covered first. Subsequent parts can be used as time allows and in any order. Note that there are other aspects of how climate change impacts water that are not covered in this teaching box including extreme precipitation and flooding, ocean acidification, permafrost thaw, and changes to ice shelves and sea ice.
