Investigating Weather and Climate with Google Earth

Environmental Literacy and Inquiry Working Group at Lehigh University

In this activity, students use Google Earth to explore global temperature changes during a recent 50 - 58 year period. They also explore, analyze, and interpret climate patterns of 13 different cities, and analyze differences between weather and climate patterns.

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Notes from our reviewers

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Encourage students to recognize that, on a whole, the trends observed for the cities need to be averaged, not taken individually, with all the other stations worldwide. Jigsaw the cities.
This is one in a technology-supported series of inquiry activities focusing on a range of environmental science topics using Google Earth. No reference is given to the source of the climate data in the kmz file. Some background information for teacher provided. Comments from expert scientist: Students gain experience in graph reading, geography, examining temperature trends over time, and evaluating evidence that supports surface warming trends.
All student supporting materials are available online. For educators to access the suggested assessments, they need to log into [http://www.ei.lehigh.edu] with a password. Using Google Earth will likely engage students of different learning styles. Instructions for students are well-written and clear. This activity is part of a curriculum - background information is listed on the homepage of the entire curriculum [http://www.ei.lehigh.edu/eli/cc/index.html] This is a technology-supported middle school science inquiry curriculum emphasizing weather and climate using Google Earth web- based tools. Curriculum has been pilot tested in urban middle school classrooms.