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Students will take on the role of a planning board for a region identified as having an increased risk for natural hazards — wildfires, floods, droughts, heatwaves or hurricanes — due to climate change. After proposing regulations and other strategies to reduce the natural hazard’s impact, the students will discuss the merits of the proposed solutions before voting on a disaster plan and budget for their region.

Students will answer questions about the online Science News article “Earth’s oceans are storing record-breaking amounts of heat,” which explores how the upper oceans’ heat storage capacity has changed over time. A version of the story, “Earth’s oceans broke heat records in 2020,” appears in the February 13, 2021 issue of Science News.

Students will discuss how graphs and quantitative analogies are useful for interpreting and understanding data. Then, students will analyze and compare how effective each strategy is at communicating a scientific claim. As an extension, students may propose an alternative method of displaying or explaining given data.

Students will learn about the effects of habitat fragmentation on a critically endangered species, explore scientists’ process for designing and engineering a solution to the problem, and discuss the importance of conservation.

Students will answer questions about the online Science News article “A rope bridge restored a highway through the trees for endangered gibbons,” which describes how researchers helped critically endangered Hainan gibbons in China navigate a gully after a landslide. A version of the story, “A rope bridge restored an ape highway,” can be found in the November 21, 2020 issue of Science News.

Students will answer questions about one of Science News’ Top 10 stories of 2019.

Students will learn about three global monitoring networks and the types of scientific data collected by each. Additional prompts encourage students to consider the purpose of these networks.

These questions, based on the Science News article “Radioactive cloud traced to Russia,” ask students to identify a series of events and list and evaluate evidence.

Students will think through and diagram an Arctic and local food web and will explore how ecosystem disruptions can impact the food webs.

Students will answer questions based on the Science News article "The case of the Arctic's missing ice."

Students will review volcano monitoring data and learn how to use it to predict possible volcano behavior.

These discussion prompts explore volcanic explosivity and collapse, the ecosystem and health effects of eruptions and how to keep people safe during natural disasters.