It's Getting Hot in Here - Review of Trade Book

Author Seymour Simon, in conjunction with the Smithsonian Institution, offers a brief and easy to understand introduction to climate change and global warming that is appropriate for a younger audience. This fictional book on global warming discusses topics from greenhouse gases, the role humans have played in impacting climate change, and the effects we are seeing on a global scale from our actions.

The topics of climate change and global warming are important for everyone to understand, especially for students who are going to see the more drastic effects of global warming in the future. Global warming will affect where people can live, the air we breathe, and the food we eat as well as the natural systems, habitats, and living organisms across the globe. Climate change and global warming are topics that can be linked to standards across multiple subjects but specifically within science teachers can talk about these topics when discussing ecosystems, weather and climate, earth’s systems, and even engineering design as we think about technology development to assist with the effects of global warming. Global warming is a topic that can seem very abstract to students especially in younger grades; because of this teachers will need to offer many models and visuals for students to follow along when discussing this topic. One common misconception about global warming and climate change is that the climate is always changing and evolving even before human impact. “Global Warming” briefly addresses this misconception and states while this could be partially true, the rate at which we are seeing the effects of global warming are unlike any other patterns scientists have researched from the earth’s history and humans undoubtedly have an effect on the rate of change.

“Global Warming” by Seymour Simon and the Smithsonian Institution does a great job of introducing the topic in broad strokes and is an ideal book for introducing the topic of global warming due to the breadth of knowledge it offers. A teacher could read this book at the beginning of a unit plan. Activities that could follow this book could involve a research project or a journal exercise asking students to think critically about what they just learned.

Here is the book trailer I created for this book. I can see kids really enjoying doing this project for a boo of their choice as part of the unit plan.