HS-ESS3-5 | Climate Change Forecasting
Analyze geoscience data and the results from global climate models to make an evidence-based forecast of the current rate of global or regional climate change and associated future impacts to Earth systems.
Clarification statement: Examples of evidence, for both data and climate model outputs, are for climate changes (such as precipitation and temperature) and their associated impacts (such as on sea level, glacial ice volumes, or atmosphere and ocean composition).
Assessment boundary: Assessment is limited to one example of a climate change and its associated impacts.
Assessment
What assessment of HS-ESS3-5 might look like on a NY state exam.
Performance Level Descriptions
PLDs communicate the knowledge and skills expected of students to demonstrate proficiency in each Learning Standard. NYS assessments classify student performance into one of five levels.
Vocabulary
Terms from the Earth & Space Science Glossary that come from this standard or from the released exam questions that assess it.
- argument
- atmosphere
- climate change
- composition
- design solution
- Earth
- evidence-based forecast
- geoscience data
- glacial ice volumes
- global climate models
- human impacts
- model
- new technologies
- ocean
- precipitation
- regional climate change
- sea level
- biodiversity – June 2025
- density – Jan 2026
- emissions – June 2025
- fossil fuels – Aug 2026
- ghost forest – June 2025
- glacial ice – Jan 2026
- glaciers – June 2025
- greenhouse gas emissions – June 2025
- greenhouse gases – June 2025
- ground vegetation – June 2025
- high tide – June 2025
- humidity – June 2025
- ice – Jan 2026, Sample 2024
- ice extent – Sample 2024
- ice sheet – Jan 2026
- mass – Jan 2026
- ocean circulation – June 2025
- ocean currents – Jan 2026
- runoff – June 2025
- salinity – Jan 2026
- satellites – Aug 2026
- soil erosion – June 2025
- solar energy – June 2025
- surface ocean currents – June 2025
- surface temperature – Aug 2026, June 2025
- water vapor – Aug 2026
Resources
Examples and discussion of resources for the learning, teaching, and assessment of HS-ESS3-5.
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NGSS Dimensions
Performance expectation HS-ESS3-5 was developed using the following elements from the NRC document A Framework for K-12 Science Education:
- Analyzing and interpreting data: Analyze data using tools, technologies and/or models (e.g., computational or mathematical) in order to make valid and reliable scientific claims or determine optimal design solution.
- Scientific Investigations Use a Variety of Methods: Science investigations use diverse methods and do not always use the same set of procedures to obtain data.
- Scientific Investigations Use a Variety of Methods: New technologies advance scientific knowledge.
- Scientific Knowledge is Based on Empirical Evidence: Science knowledge is based on empirical evidence.
- Scientific Knowledge is Based on Empirical Evidence: Science arguments are strengthened by multiple lines of evidence supporting a single explanation.
- Global climate change: Though the magnitudes of human impacts are greater than they have ever been, so too are human abilities to model, predict, and manage current and future impacts.
- Stability and change: Change and rates of change can be quantified and modeled over very short or very long periods of time. Some system changes are irreversible.