Your child’s 7th-grade science class is starting a unit called, How do changes in the Earth’s system impact our communities and what can we do about it? as part of the OpenSciEd middle school science curriculum. This unit builds science ideas around Earth’s resources and human impact, specifically, related to why our communities are experiencing more droughts and floods.
While reading news stories and headlines, students are introduced to what's starting to become a disturbing new normal: droughts and floods across the US. As different as they are, students recognize that rising temperatures are connected somehow. As the unit progresses, students examine how small changes could lead to large disruptions to community water resources. Meanwhile, students define, investigate, and explain what could be the cause of all these temperature changes and flood and drought events.
Students work with data to examine how present-day human activities are changing the Earth, creating an imbalance in carbon between the Earth and its atmosphere. By defining the problem, students work to brainstorm and evaluate different kinds of solutions for particular communities, including their own.
