This is a partially developed activity description. It is included in the collection because it contains ideas useful for teaching even though it is incomplete.

Initial Publication Date: February 11, 2008

Comparing Rainfall Trend

Helen King & Dan Zalles
Topic: Climate, atmospheric science, environmental science, land use etc.—anything that might involve rainfall data
Course Type: intro or upper level

Description

Introductory Level

Students think about how rainfall has varied in their home town / State / country during their lifetime (instructor can do the same). Students compare 'memory' with real data provided by Giovanni data visualization tool (http://disc.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/acdisc/). Compare between different locations, discuss.

Upper Level

Students are posed question "Explore how much, if any, of a relationship there is between historical land use patterns (e.g. agricultural data) and rainfall patterns." Students design own study using Giovanni datasets.

Goals

Assessment

References

http://disc.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/acdisc/