Lesson 19 – Climate Change Impacts on Agricultural Water Resources
This is Lesson 19, “Climate Change Impacts on Agricultural Water Resources,” part of the Drinking Water: Protecting the Source curriculum. It provides teacher background on how climate change affects water availability and quality, the hydrologic cycle, and crop production, then guides students through a “Climate Change in the News” activity in which they analyze and critique how newspapers and media report on climate change, water, and agriculture. The lesson aims to have students predict how climate change might alter water resources, particularly agricultural water use, in their state.
At a glance
- Learning objectives
-
- Predict how climate change might alter water resources, particularly agricultural water use, in their state.
- Read, review and critique the way newspapers report on climate change.
- Describe how different locations and regions view the issues and effects of climate change.
- Time required
- Instruction time for this lesson: 50 minutes for reading and discussions
- Grade level
- 9-12
- Materials
-
- Computer with Internet connection
- LED projector
- Current local, state and international newspapers
- Science and water-related magazines and journals such as Scientific American, Science Daily, Science News, Real Climate (web), Science, Nature, and your state's department of natural resources magazine
- Other media: online radio and TV archives
- Key Terms
- Climate change; Conservation; Decision maker; Safe Drinking Water Act; Stakeholder; Underground storage tank; Watershed
Downloads & Links
Aligned Standards
National Science Education Standards for Grades 9 – 12
- Content Standard AAbilities Necessary to Do Scientific Inquiry: Design and conduct scientific investigations.
- Content Standard AAbilities Necessary to Do Scientific Inquiry: Design and conduct scientific investigations.
- Content Standard CLife Science: The Interdependence of Organisms – Human beings live within the world's ecosystems. Increasingly, humans modify ecosystems as a result of population growth, technology and consumption.
- Content Standard DEarth and Space Science: Geochemical Cycles – Each element on earth moves among reservoirs in the solid earth, oceans, atmosphere and organisms as part of geochemical cycles.
- Content Standard FScience in Personal and Social Perspectives: Natural Resources – Human populations use resources in the environment in order to maintain and improve their existence. Natural resources have been and will continue to be used to maintain human populations.