Friday, January 18, 2008

LET'S COMPARE

What is the weather like in Arkansas this time of year?
In Washington?
...cold and dry?
...cold and wet?
...warm and dry?
...warm and wet?

...or something else altogether?!


Let’s do a little comparing. As we are all in the midst of winter, let’s gather some data and compare the weather in Arkansas and Washington.

In studying weather, we typically talk about five things: temperature, atmospheric pressure, humidity, wind direction and speed, and precipitation. For our project, let’s focus on temperature and precipitation for a month.

Here’s what to do:
1) Record the high temperature for each day in January, 2008, along with the amount of precipitation.
2) Make a line graph showing high temperatures for the month and a separate bar graph showing the amounts of precipitation. (Challenge: produce these using Microsoft Excel.)
3) Post your graphs by Friday, February 8, 2008. Then both classes will have the data to make a comparison.
4) Write a conclusion (one per class) and post by Thursday, February 14.

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Okay, this is totally NOT related, but I want to share with you.
The other chapter when we were studying meteors, and we did a little activity with flour, chocolate, and balls of varying densities.
Students filled a tin with flour and dusted the top with chocolate powder. They then dropped a ball (always from the same height) and then measured the depth and width of the resulting crater. Students also observed the rays left by the flying debris.
It was pretty cool to observe craters left by a marble, a golf ball (below), a squishy earth, and a styrofoam ball. We can imagine something about the meteorites that struck Earth and the moon leaving craters we see today.

A golf ball meteor strikes the surface leaving a sizeable crater.
Measurements are taken of both the depth and width of the impact crater.
Comparison were made and conclusions drawn regarding the density of the meteorite and the size of the resulting impact crater.

2 comments:

Maldo's Stuff said...

this looks fun! We are thinking of trying it!

Maldo's Stuff said...
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