This cross-curricular lesson explores math in text, immigration, and climate change.

This lesson is connected to the article, Better Future: At Home, There Are No Jobs, The Cities Are Unsafe, and the Rivers Are Dry, written by adult learner Hortensia Reza Rodriguez, and published issue #56 of The Change Agent. In her article, Hortensia describes her family’s immigration to the U.S. from Mexico in part due to climate change. In this lesson, learners have a chance to investigate data related to climate change and drought in northern Mexico, the region Hortensia is from.

An important skill in statistical literacy, numeracy, and reading comprehension is the ability to make sense of the numbers, fractions, and percentages that appear in narrative texts and articles. Too often we gloss over the numbers, and just keep reading. This lesson encourages learners to go deeper into math that appears in text.

Using colorful maps and statistics, students have a chance to work with large numbers, fractions, and percents as they develop questions about the data, write true statements about the data, and compare visual representations of data with written descriptions.

This lesson was created and made freely available by the SABES  Mathematics and Adult Numeracy Curriculum & Instruction Professional Development Team.