Chart assignment

U.S. history chart assignment

Read each chart, then answer its questions. Every chart shows its source and date; open it for a table of the numbers and the data to download.

  1. How much has the US warmed since 1895?
  2. How long do Americans live, and how has that changed since 1900?

Printable worksheet each chart with its source, date and space to write answers

Chart 1 of 2 · Climate

How much has the US warmed since 1895?

The interactive chart needs JavaScript. The numbers are on the chart's page.

The contiguous US averaged 54.6°F in 2025. The warmest year since records began in 1895 was 2024, at 55.5°F. Through 2025, the dashed trend line, the straight line that best fits every year, rose about 0.18°F a decade, or 2.3°F since 1895, and warming had sped up to about 0.5°F a decade since 1970. Alaska and Hawaii aren't included.

How to read this chart

Each point is one year's average temperature across the lower 48 states, in degrees Fahrenheit. The axis doesn't start at zero, so a small rise looks steep: read the numbers on the axis, not the height of the line. The dashed line is the trend, the straight line that best fits every year; single years bounce above and below it.

Questions to discuss

  1. Find the warmest and coolest years on the chart. How many degrees apart are they?
  2. Why might one year be much cooler than the year before, even while the trend line keeps rising?
  3. The axis doesn't start at zero here, but bar charts always do. Why is that fair for temperatures but not for bars?

Source: NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, Climate at a Glance (Public domain (U.S. government work)) · Data as of Dec 31, 2025

Open the chart and its numbers

Chart 2 of 2 · Health

How long do Americans live, and how has that changed since 1900?

The interactive chart needs JavaScript. The numbers are on the chart's page.

A baby born in the US in 2018 could expect to live 78.7 years, up from 47.3 in 1900. The sharpest drop was in 1918, to 39.1 years, during the influenza pandemic. This CDC dataset stops at 2018; later NCHS reports put life expectancy at 78.4 years in 2023 and 79.0 in 2024, after a fall during the COVID-19 pandemic.

How to read this chart

Each point is how long a baby born in that year could expect to live, if death rates stayed as they were that year. It is an average, so it is pulled down a lot when many babies and young people die. Hover or tap a point to read its year and value.

Questions to discuss

  1. How long could a baby born in 1900 expect to live, and how long one born in the newest year on the chart?
  2. Find the sharpest drop on the chart. What happened in the United States and the world that year?
  3. Which changes in the 1900s (clean water, vaccines, antibiotics) do you think added the most years, and why?

Source: CDC National Center for Health Statistics, Death rates and life expectancy at birth (Public domain (U.S. government work)) · Data as of Dec 31, 2018

Open the chart and its numbers

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