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Geography · Grade 4

Climate Patterns and Human Adaptation

Why is Singapore warm all year while Chicago freezes in January, and why is Nevada a desert next to snowy mountains? Learners sort places into five climate groups, explain the controls behind them (latitude, water, elevation and mountains that make rain shadows), read climographs for made-up towns to identify their climate, and examine how people adapt to and change their environments, from adobe walls and terraces to irrigation and air conditioning, with benefits and costs.

  • 4 lessons
  • About 90 minutes
  • Climate and adaptation check: 10 questions
  • Ways to answer: choose an answer, highlight a text, pick map regions, match pairs, type a number and put in order
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What learners will discover

  • Describe five climate groups (tropical, dry, temperate, cold-winter and polar) and where on Earth each is usually found.
  • Explain how latitude, nearness to large bodies of water, elevation and mountain rain shadows control a place's climate.
  • Read a climograph's monthly temperature line and precipitation bars and use them to identify a place's climate group.
  • Explain how people adapt to climate through housing, clothing, farming and technology, and how they modify environments, naming benefits and costs.

Lessons

  1. Climate groups around the world 7 steps3 practiceabout 20 min
  2. What controls climate? 8 steps5 practiceabout 22 min
  3. Reading a climograph 7 steps3 practiceabout 22 min
  4. People adapt and change places 7 steps4 practiceabout 20 min
  5. Climate and adaptation check 10 questions at the end

Keep exploring

Games to practice with

  • Globe ExplorerSpin a real 3D globe, flip to the flat map, and find continents, oceans and countries.
  • Pin the PlanetDrag the pin onto wonders, cities and exact latitude and longitude points.
  • Mapmaker QuestFollow directions to make a map, then read its legend, compass rose and scale.

More 4th grade geography

Guide for grown-ups