This comprehensive climate resource provides a plethora of temperature data and interactive charts that are customizable by location, time period, ranking, or GPS location.
The data can be downloaded and citations are provided for referencing the data in the charts.
Teaching Tips
Positives
The data and charts provided are up to date and easy to use.
Students can investigate the temperature changes in their local area over time.
Additional Prerequisites
Students should know how to read a graph and understand the importance of scale (particularly on the y-axis) when comparing graphs.
Differentiation
Math and science classes could use the data as a resource for lessons about graphing or data analysis.
Any class could use the data for fact-checking or lessons about climate change, weather vs. climate, and local vs. global changes.
This resource provides insights on estimating temperature departures and variation over a long period of time. Students can navigate on the interactive map to gain deep understanding on these anomalies. Additional links provide methods for calculating temperature anomalies using gridded data sets from GHCN-M and ICOADS. The dataset is accurate, and the resource is recommended for teaching.
Standards
Science
ESS3: Earth and Human Activity
6.ESS3.5 Ask clarifying questions based on evidence about the factors that have caused climate change over the past century.