Lesson Overview
Featured Article: “How Bad Is the Western Drought? Worst in 12 Centuries, Study Finds.” by Henry Fountain
Drought is gripping the American West, which includes California, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, Utah, Oregon, Washington, Idaho and Montana. Climate change has fueled a drought that began in 2000, making the past two decades the driest since 800 A.D., according to a new study. That was 1,200 years ago!
In this lesson, you will learn how this megadrought is affecting the Western United States and when it might end. Then, as a choice of Going Further activities, we invite you to make connections between this news and your own community; learn more about the reach and consequences of megadrought; or find ways to inform others about the situation.
Warm-Up
Before reading, look at the maps below from the Times interactive “How Severe Is the Western Drought? See For Yourself.” Published in June 2021, these maps visualize the drought crisis in the Western United States since 2000. Then, respond by answering the same questions we ask weekly in our What’s Going On in This Graph? feature:
Finally, make a prediction: Based on the series of maps, do you think the drought will continue to grow in severity? How long do you think it might last?
Questions for Writing and Discussion
Read the featured article, then answer the following questions:
1. What is a megadrought? How did climate scientists determine that the current megadrought in the American Southwest is the worst in 12 centuries?
2. What factors lead to severe drought? What role has human-caused climate change played, according to the new study?
3. What are three ways the drought has affected people and communities?
4. How long do scientists believe the drought will last and why? What do projections show about the future?
5. Why didn’t last year’s monsoon rains in the desert Southwest or the heavy rain and snow in California end the drought?
6. The article concludes with a quote from Samantha Stevenson, a climate modeler at the University of California, Santa Barbara:
We’re sort of shifting into basically unprecedented times relative to anything we’ve seen in the last several hundred years.
What is your reaction to the article and to these “unprecedented times”? What does it make you think and feel? Do you think that learning about the extreme drought conditions gripping the West will cause you and other Americans to take the climate change crisis more seriously? Why or why not? What questions do you still have about drought or climate change?
Going Further
Option 1: Discuss the effect of the drought, and extreme weather, on you.
Do you live in a state that is experiencing drought? If so, how is it affecting you, your family and your community? What would you like others to know? What’s missing from the news coverage you have read, heard or seen?
If your state is not in the middle of a drought, have you experienced extreme weather such as wildfires, heat waves, hurricanes, floods or anything else where you live? If so, what was it like? How has it affected your life and the lives of those in your community?
How do you feel about the increase in frequency of extreme weather around the world and the intensifying effects of climate change? Is this something you discuss with your classmates, friends or parents? Why or why not?
What questions do you still have about climate change and its impact on your community and the world?
If you are interested in joining a conversation with other teenagers about extreme weather conditions and climate change, please share your thoughts in the comments section of our related Student Opinion question. You can also read what other students have posted and respond to them. Did you learn anything from others’ responses that you didn’t already know?
Option 2: Learn more about the human impact of the megadrought.
The intense drought is affecting people and communities across America. For example, in New Mexico, farmers along the Rio Grande have been urged not to plant this year; the level of Lake Mead, the huge reservoir on the Colorado River, is so low that Arizona, Nevada and other states will most likely face cutbacks in supplies; and in North Dakota, ranchers are trucking water and supplemental feed for their livestock because the rangelands are so dry and the vegetation is stunted.
Choose one of the recent articles from The Times below to learn more about the human impact of the extreme drought. Then, respond to the following prompts in writing or through discussion with a partner or small group: What new information did you learn about the drought and how it is affecting people and communities? What was most interesting, surprising or memorable? What questions do you still have?
Option 3: Inform others.
Using the information you learned in the warm-up activity and the featured article, create something to help educate others about the drought in the American West. Here are some options:
Teach a fifth grader about the conditions in the West. In five minutes or fewer, help someone younger than you understand the situation. You might want to use maps, statistics and images — or colorful paper, pencils and pens — to help communicate the information.
Design a one-pager to share what you learned with another student or an adult in your life. Using images or maps from the articles, key words and quotes, design a visually compelling summary of the drought conditions in America.
Create a concept map to illustrate the situation. Generate a list of key words, phrases, numbers and statistics. Then create a map to show how they are related to one another.
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