Chart assignment

Charts to read and discuss

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 have the last 12 months compared with normal in the US?
  2. What is the unemployment rate in each country?

Chart 1 of 2 · Climate

How have the last 12 months compared with normal in the US?

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

Of the 12 months from October 2025 to September 2026, March 2026 was the warmest compared with normal across the contiguous US, 9.4°F above its 1901–2000 average for that month. May 2026 was the coolest compared with normal, at 1.5°F (below zero means colder than average). Each bar compares a month with the same month's average, so a warm January and a warm July are measured alike.

Questions to discuss

  1. In one sentence of your own, what does this chart show?
  2. Find the biggest change or difference in the chart. What might explain it?
  3. Who collected these numbers, and how recent are they? What else would you want to know before drawing a conclusion?

Source: NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, Climate at a Glance (Public domain (U.S. government work)) · Data as of Sep 30, 2026

Open the chart and its numbers

Chart 2 of 2 · World

What is the unemployment rate in each country?

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

In 2025, 4.2% of workers in the United States were unemployed, against 4.8% worldwide; the highest rate was 34.2% in Eswatini, and the lowest 0.1%, in Qatar. Search 182 countries and territories. These are the International Labour Organization's estimates, which count people without work who are looking for it and fill gaps where a country runs no regular survey, so they can differ from a country's own figures.

How to read this chart

Each bar is the share of a country's workers who have no job and are looking for one, estimated by the International Labour Organization. The dashed line is the world. People who aren't looking for work, such as students and retirees, aren't counted as unemployed at all.

Questions to discuss

  1. Is the United States above or below the world rate, and by about how many percentage points?
  2. A country can have low unemployment while many people earn very little. How is that possible?
  3. Why would someone who has given up looking for work not count as unemployed? Does that make the number more or less useful?

Source: World Bank, World Development Indicators: Unemployment, total (% of total labor force) (modeled ILO estimate) (CC BY 4.0 (credit the World Bank)) · Data as of Dec 31, 2025

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