Spring 1999 Student Final Reports

Global Temperature Project

The Sun Times

Spring 1999
Student Final Reports

All classes participating in this project have been asked to submit a final report to the project Discussion Area. In this report, students share what they have learned from doing the project. Read on to see the results of the students' hard work!

Final Report from Temple St. Academy - Palm Bay, Florida, USA
Final Report from Seneca Street School - Oneida, New York, USA
Final Report from Knoles School - Flagstaff, Arizona, USA
Final Report from Micklefield School - Capetown, South Africa

Final Report from Temple St. Academy - Palm Bay, Florida, USA

Hi. We finished up our project today and were a little surprised with what we discovered. We had thought that the more hours of sunlight a place received, the warmer it would be. Surprise! We just learned that the amount of sunlight doesn't affect the temperature as much as latitude does. At this time of year, the northern latitudes get the most sunlight, but the latitudes near the equator still have the warmest temperatures.

We looked at a great website called "Here Comes the Sun" at http://vortex.plymouth.edu that showed how the tilt of the earth and the earth's position to the sun makes the seasons change, and effects which areas get the most sunlight (although not necessarily the most heat). We think the areas with the highest temperatures -- those nearest the equator --get most of the sun's energy so they are hotter. The areas further from the equator may get more light because of the time of year, but they receive less heat or direct energy from the sun because of the tilt of the earth and the angle of the sunlight.

We really enjoyed doing this project and feel like we learned a lot. We've really enjoyed meeting everyone, too. Thanks for letting us participate.

We forgot to include some final report data. Our school name is as shown. We're in East Central Florida (where we were surprised to see we had nearly as much sunlight as Singapore!)and our students,Andrea and Ellie, are in the 4th and 5th grade. This project incorporated several disciplines in our home school, including language arts, science, math, and geography. Thanks again!

Final Report from Seneca Street School - Oneida, New York, USA

We have been busy using the data submitted on the Internet. We have graphed the temperatures and latitudes and the minutes of daylight. After plotting all the locations on the graphs we learned several things.

We observed that places like Canberra, Australia and Flagstaff Arizona have almost the same temperature and latitudes even thought they are in different hemispheres.

If two places are the same distance from the equator or the same latitude north or south then the temperatures will be almost the same.

The closer a place is to the Equator the warmer the temperautre. The farther a place is from the Equator the colder the temperature.

After observing the graph about latitude and sunlight we found that two places located at the same latitude and hemisphere have about the same number of minutes of sunlight.

Two places located at the same latitude and the opposite hemisphere will have diffrent amounts of sunlight time.

If two places are in the opposite hemispheres they will be in different seasons and have different amounts of sunlight.

We all have enjoyed working and learning about the temperatures and latitudes in the Global Temperautre Project.

Mrs. Carmola's Fifth Grade Seneca Street School

Final Report from Knoles School - Flagstaff, Arizona, USA

When we looked at our graph of the minutes of daylight, we observed that most schools located north of us had more minutes of daylight than we did. We observed that schools located south of us had fewer minutes of daylight. When we graphed the temperatures, we found that schools closer to the equator had warmer temperatures. When we compared our temperature to that of Anza, California, the school closest to us in latitude, we found that we were several degrees colder. We think that is due to our 7000 foot elevation. We observed that our temperature was actually closer to that of schools located at northern latitudes.

We concluded that minutes of daylight and degrees of temperature were related to one's latitude. We also concluded that elevation can influence temperature.

We enjoyed this project. We especially liked locating the participating schools on the globe and reading about them in their letters of introduction. As first graders, we learned what data was and how to collect it. We learned what latitude and longitude meant. We would like to participate in a project like this again and we would encourage others to do so too.

Final Report from Micklefield School - Capetown, South Africa

This is the first graph we have plotted like this. Some of us found it quite tricky at using the positive and negative numbers for latitude. We have learnt a lot.

We think that when you travel closer to the equator you get warmer and further away, cooler. We did this project in May when the sun was near the equator and that is why it was hottest there. This graph was curved.

We found that the further north you go the more daylight minutes you have. If we did it in December we would have more daylight minutes in the southern hemisphere. The daylight minutes graph was nearly a straight line.

Grade 5.

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