Normal Climate Patterns

Betsy Youngman, LuAnn Dahlman, Earthlabs from TERC

This activity develops students' understanding of climate by having them make in-depth examinations of historical climate patterns using both graphical and map image formats rather than presenting a general definition of climate. Students explore local climate in order to inform a pen pal what type of weather to expect during an upcoming visit. Students generate and explore a variety of graphs, charts, and map images and interpret them to develop an understanding of climate.

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Notes from our reviewers

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Google Earth must be installed prior to activity. There is a link from the teacher support materials for the lab to the student materials but no link the other way. Educator should be aware that units are not specific on the axes. It is implicit in the annual data below the climographs, but it should be on the axes, especially for precipitation, whose units people are not necessarily familiar with. There is a high language load so the educator may need to spend time developing vocabulary.
The resource uses digitally available data that is up to date. The web pages for each lab contain links to external sites to access data, graphs, and/or articles. Student has control over the selection of data to produce the graphs. Allows students to compare climates in different regions to understand normal conditions, seasonal variations, etc. Comment from scientist: Weather extremes are not mentioned appropriately in the activity. In terms of what you should advise a friend to pack, the extremes are important in terms of being prepared. This is touched on in the presentation of the high/low temperature plots but isn't really discussed. Comment from scientist: The climographs don't use metric units, probably because of the students' familiarity with English units; but it would be good to introduce metric also as this is the standard for science.