Using Data to Identify Hot Spots and Predict Bleaching Events

Notes from our reviewers

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• Teaching Tips
  Teachers may wish to create additional robust formative questions and a summative assessment.
• About the Science
  Lab activity uses published NOAA data sets and satellite imagery to identify and analyze regions of coral bleaching. Students participate in making models, analyzing data, interpreting animations, and reading time-series graphs. High-quality background materials and references are provided for both the teacher and the students. Comments from expert scientist: The text and background descriptions for the activity are generally all strong. I like that the activity uses real data and images from NOAA. I like the hotlink options to show how to interpret the map scales.
• About the Pedagogy
  Students work in small groups, which may improve their team-work skills. Students need to be able to read graphs and interpret keyed satellite images. To successfully complete the modeling activity in Part A, students should complete Lab2 ([http://serc.carleton.edu/earthlabs/corals/2.html]) or have prior knowledge of coral physiology. It is recommended that the teacher becomes familiar with the site and the tools used on the site prior to teaching this lab. "Stop and Think" questions are posed for formative assessment, but many educators will want to create additional questions to assess learning gains. Teachers may wish to ask students to compare and contrast coral bleaching to other coral diseases, with regard to causation, impacts, and minimizing damages. A summative assessment strategy could require learners to pull together and summarize the data they have examined, perhaps from a difference location than the ones provided.
• Technical Details/Ease of Use
  Student groups will need computer access to complete the activity. Teachers should spend some time (on the order of ~2 hrs) familiarizing themselves with the site and tools prior to using this lab with students.