Grade 6 Lesson plan
Wintershaw's April Snowpack Record: Asking Better Questions
A 55-minute grade 6 lesson where students analyze sixty years of April snowpack depths at Wintershaw and write testable questions about what has changed.
NGSS · Middle School (6–8)
MS-ESS3-5 Ask questions about the causes of rising global temperatures
Ask questions to clarify evidence of the factors that have caused the rise in global temperatures over the past century.
Clarification statement: Examples of factors include human activities (such as fossil fuel combustion, cement production, and agricultural activity) and natural processes (such as changes in incoming solar radiation or volcanic activity). Examples of evidence can include tables, graphs, and maps of global and regional temperatures, atmospheric levels of gases such as carbon dioxide and methane, and the rates of human activities. Emphasis is on the major role that human activities play in causing the rise in global temperatures.
Why water teaches this standard well
A warming climate is felt first through water: deeper droughts, heavier downpours, shrinking snowpack, and stressed reservoirs. Framing climate questions around these water impacts gives students a concrete, local reason to investigate what is driving global temperatures up.
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