This piece doesn’t fit as nicely as the water piece into my new curriculum, but I still think it is worthwhile. In a unit centered around the question of what human activities can influence the temperature, the unit is lacking a discussion of trees. Trees, and other vegetation as well but especially trees, can influence the temperature of an area, so they should be a part of the discussion.
Day 1: Red Lining
Start class asking students to recall what they learned about environmental racism. Put a definition on the board and, depending on whether students have switched into class since the last discussion, be rather brief or fairly thorough. Show this video28 about the practice of red lining. Again, let students watch without a notes requirement but do encourage them to have paper out in case they want to write something down. And again, let them debrief afterward, because these topics are heavy. After some discussion, show the following images of New Haven: the red lined map put out in 1937 by the Home Owners Loan Corporation29, a COVID outbreak map from April, 202030, the tree cover map of New Haven from 201631, and average annual household income by neighborhood, based on 2000-2020 data32.
(Extension: Share this longer video33 on red lining and its consequences with any students who are interested.)
With the first image up, let students examine. Many who live in town will start searching for their neighborhoods, the ones who do not may look for their friends’ or family’s homes, or for the school, their elementary schools, etc. Talk about what it might have meant for families in neighborhoods in 1937 if their neighborhood was red or yellow vs green or blue. Then give them time to look and write down observations for each of the next three images, especially comparing the first to each of the other images, but ask them not to call answers out. Eventually, after all students have noted at least 1-2 observations, ask students to share. Talk about why these maps line up, and how actions and policies from decades and even centuries ago can create legacies that still influence our world today, and in this case this historic action is part of the legacy that we call systemic racism.
After we’ve examined the maps, ask students what some of the differences are between the greener neighborhoods and the grayer neighborhoods in the tree cover map: What do each look like? Feel like? What is present in each neighborhood? Etc. Show this video34 to introduce the urban heat island effect.
For homework, have students look over this website35 showcasing data relating to housing segregation in New Haven and make some observations about what trends they notice.
Day 2: Urban Heat Island Effect
Begin class asking why cities are usually hotter than surrounding towns and rural areas. Have students who were absent the previous class watch the urban heat island effect video during this discussion. Give notes on what exactly the urban heat island effect is, maybe 20 minutes, and include details about how brick, stone, concrete, asphalt all absorb heat and re-radiate it, and how plants work against this, both by providing shade and by providing moisture which cools the environment as it evaporates. Discuss the relative amounts of buildings and pavement versus green space in cities and urban areas. Then have students check out the EPA page on the urban heat island effect36. Ask them to look around, maybe read the abstracts of some of the linked articles and definitely check out both the Heat Island Impacts and Heat Island Cooling Strategies pages linked toward the bottom.
Before this lesson, see if every science teacher across town (which covers every school, except Mayo and the younger Hooker school) can get a class to go outside and take temperature readings at noon. If they are willing, ask that they take two temperature readings, one as close to the front door as possible while being in the sun, and the other as close to the front door as possible while being in the shade. For each, I’m going to stipulate that the sunny or shady patch needs to be at least 2 square feet, so we don’t wind up trying to hold a thermometer in the shade cast by a flagpole, or something equally ridiculous. I’ll also ask them to measure how far from the front door each location was, which could become a useful measurement skills lesson for them, but may also yield some interesting information if any school’s distance is particularly long.
Have students look this data over and then also find each school on a map of New Haven. While all NHPS schools are considered urban, ask students to discuss the neighborhood in which each school is located, and if they feel like they can point to any trends between the temperature readings and the neighborhoods where we find the schools. Schools like Edgewood and Hale are very suburban, while Coop is much more urban and Metro and HSC are fairly removed from the city and are somewhat industrial. While I don’t think a single day’s temperature information is enough to base any conclusions upon, looking at this data will still be interesting and may show some trends.
Ask students to look at schools they attended, students from out of district middle schools may partner with someone who attended in district, and consider what other factors may be affecting temperature: proximity to water, elevation, windiness, etc. Maybe not in each section, but by the end of this lesson in each section, we will likely have notes about additional factors associated with almost all the schools. These notes can be compiled in a Google doc that is then sent home to students with instructions to look over what additional trends they can notice that relate to temperature outside of the urban heat island effect.
Day 3-5: Cooling The Neighborhood
In groups, assign students to cool our neighborhood. They need to identify at least one aspect of the neighborhood as it is that increases the heat, and then at least four strategies that they think would cool the neighborhood. Once they have identified these five things, they need to explain why the current factor they identified increases the heat, and why each identified strategy is able to cool the environment. As an extension, some groups could also give an anticipated amount that the temperature would decrease if the strategy is employed. This project could be a great place for a map drawn to scale, if time and math skills allow.
(Optional) Day 6: Seeing the Urban Heat Island Effect in Person
King Robinson is a large school with a large parking lot and quite a lot of surfaces that will likely increase the heat whilst standing in its parking lot. Just behind it is a beautiful park with lots of tree cover, a pond, and a splash pad that may be operating during the fall or late spring, all of which would make this area significantly cooler than the school. With permission from King Robinson’s administration, I’d like to bring students there to measure and map the area, and then to take temperature readings in various places around the exterior of the school and in the park.
Continuing This Theme: Ongoing
Students who are interested will be encouraged to contact URI, Urban Resources Initiative to ask for a tree (or a few) to be planted at NHA. If URI plants a tree, the residents, in this case they would be students, are responsible for watering the tree regularly, so the group of them could divvy up who is going to take this responsibility on and when.
