Earth’s Changing Climate Phenomena Poster Set

Help students investigate how Earth’s climate changes over time with this engaging Earth’s Changing Climate phenomena resource.

This six-poster collection uses visually rich science phenomena to encourage students to analyze patterns, interpret evidence, ask questions, and develop explanations about climate trends, changes in Earth systems, and the factors that can influence global and regional climate.

Students move beyond simply describing weather and begin thinking about how scientists use long-term evidence to understand climate change.

What’s Included

This resource includes six individual full-color portrait phenomena posters.

Each poster includes:

A high-interest phenomenon question

A detailed science visual, model, graph, or Earth system scene

“What do you notice?” observation prompts

“What do you wonder?” discussion questions

Key science vocabulary

A “Try This Thinking” activity or challenge

A CER Starter for Claim, Evidence, and Reasoning practice

A concise science statement reinforcing the main concept

Investigate Climate Over Time

Students explore how climate is measured over long periods and how patterns can reveal meaningful changes.

The phenomena provide opportunities to examine temperature trends, changing environmental conditions, and other evidence scientists use to study Earth’s climate.

Students begin distinguishing between short-term weather events and long-term climate patterns.

Analyze Evidence of Climate Change

Students are encouraged to look carefully at evidence and consider what that evidence may show.

They can investigate questions such as:

What patterns do you notice over time?

How have temperatures changed?

What other Earth systems appear to be changing?

What evidence supports the idea that climate is changing?

How can scientists determine whether a change is part of a larger trend?

What additional evidence would strengthen an explanation?

These questions help students develop stronger data-analysis and scientific reasoning skills.

Explore Causes and Effects

The posters provide opportunities for students to examine relationships between changes in Earth’s systems.

Students can consider how changes in atmospheric conditions, energy balance, ice, oceans, land, and living systems may be connected.

Rather than viewing climate change as a single isolated event, students begin thinking about multiple interacting causes and effects.

Connect Climate to Earth Systems

Earth’s climate is part of a larger interconnected system.

Students investigate how the atmosphere, oceans, land, ice, and living organisms can influence one another.

A change in one component may create effects elsewhere in the system, helping students develop a stronger understanding of Earth system interactions.

Work With Patterns and Data

Climate science relies heavily on evidence collected over time.

The visual phenomena provide opportunities for students to interpret graphs, compare conditions, identify trends, and distinguish meaningful patterns from individual observations.

These activities help strengthen both science understanding and data literacy.

Build Observation and Questioning Skills

Each poster includes structured Notice and Wonder prompts that encourage students to investigate before forming an explanation.

Students can:

Identify patterns in climate evidence

Compare changes over time

Analyze models and graphs

Generate scientific questions

Consider cause-and-effect relationships

Make predictions

Develop and revise explanations

These routines support thoughtful, evidence-based classroom discussion.

Strengthen Science Vocabulary

Important science vocabulary is embedded within meaningful phenomena.

Students encounter concepts related to climate, atmosphere, temperature, greenhouse gases, energy, trends, evidence, Earth systems, models, and change while actively applying those terms to scientific explanations.

Displaying the posters throughout the unit provides students with an ongoing visual vocabulary reference.

Support CER Practice

Each poster includes a student-friendly CER Starter.

Students practice making a Claim, identifying Evidence from a visual, graph, model, or scenario, and using Reasoning to explain how that evidence supports their scientific conclusion.

Repeated CER opportunities help students become more confident evaluating climate evidence and constructing explanations supported by data.

Develop and Revise Scientific Explanations

Climate science provides a strong context for showing students how explanations improve as new evidence becomes available.

Students can begin with an initial interpretation, examine additional evidence, and revise their ideas as their understanding grows.

This reinforces the idea that scientific explanations are built from multiple pieces of evidence rather than a single observation.

Great for Classroom Use

Use these posters for:

Whole-group science instruction

Phenomenon launches

Science focus walls

Notice and Wonder routines

Small-group instruction

Science centers

Science notebook responses

Vocabulary development

CER practice

Climate data analysis

Earth systems modeling

Graph interpretation

Partner discussions

Unit introductions

Review and reinforcement

Classroom displays

Revisit the Phenomena Throughout the Unit

Introduce each phenomenon before students have developed a complete explanation and collect their initial ideas.

As students analyze additional climate evidence and learn more about Earth system interactions, return to the posters and ask them to revise their thinking.

Students can incorporate new data, identify additional relationships, and strengthen their explanations with increasingly precise scientific reasoning.

Make Climate Science More Accessible

Climate change involves large-scale processes, long time periods, and multiple interacting Earth systems.

These posters provide visual entry points that help students examine evidence, recognize patterns, and build explanations from data.

By combining engaging phenomena with structured questioning, systems thinking, vocabulary development, and CER practice, this resource provides meaningful support throughout an Earth’s Changing Climate unit.

Important Disclaimer

This resource is independently created and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, sponsored by, or produced by Amplify Education. The use of “Amplify” in the product title is intended only to help educators identify the curriculum topic with which this supplemental resource may be used. Amplify Education owns its respective trademarks and curriculum materials.