In this activity, students will analyze two graphs that show the change in the annual loss of forests in Indonesia and Brazil.
Teaching Tips
Positives
The Educator Materials document includes a captioned figure, background information, graph interpretation, and discussion questions.
The materials are available in English and Spanish.
Additional Prerequisites
The data is from 2000 to 2012, so the trends in deforestation are not up to date.
Students should know how to read a bar graph.
Differentiation
Social studies or civics classes could learn more about the policies that Brazil enacted to preserve forests. Students could discuss how the policies have changed and if similar policies could help preserve forests in other countries.
Biology classes could discuss how deforestation impacts biodiversity because of habitat loss.
There is no contradiction in the resource, the datasets used are accurate to estimate forest loss over time, but more recent data may show different trends. This resource is recommended for teaching.
Standards
Mathematics
Data Reasoning and Probability (9-12)
HS.DR.D.11 Use statistical evidence from analyses to answer statistical investigative questions and communicate the findings in a variety of formats (verbal, written, visual) to support informed data-based decisions.
HS.DR.D.13 Use multivariate thinking to articulate how variables impact one another and measure the strength of association using correlation coefficients for regression curves.
Science
ESS3: Earth and Human Activity
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 (i.e., climate change).
LS2: Ecosystems: Interactions, Energy, and Dynamics
HS.LS2.2 Use mathematical representations to support and revise explanations based on evidence about factors affecting biodiversity and populations in ecosystems of different scales.
