Record the Data and Find the Averages
Overview
All of the participating classes should record the daily outdoor temperature as
well as the number of minutes of sunlight per day over the week of
Dates to be Determined. Students will then calculate the average
temperature and average minutes of sunlight per day and submit their data to the
Project Data section this web site.
Objectives
Students will:
- Use a thermometer to record daily temperature.
- Utilize a variety of resources and methods to calculate the number of
minutes of daylight per day.
- Convert units of temperature from Fahrenheit to Celsius and Celsius to
Fahrenheit.
- Calculate temperature and sunlight averages over a period of a week.
- Summarize and submit raw data to the Project web site.
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Time
Approximately 15 minutes per day for 5 days during the week of
Dates to be Determined.
Materials
- Computers with Internet access
- Thermometer
- Notebooks and Pencils
- Daily Newspaper to locate sunrise / sunset times (Optional)
-
Printable Student Worksheet (Optional)
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Teacher Preparation
- All students should measure the temperature and record the sunrise and
sunset times during the data collection week to gain the experience. You may
find it useful to consult the following Implementation strategies to help
manage the data collection:
- Background Information
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Assessment Suggestions
Since students will be collaborating as a class when submitting the data, the students'
participation in the activity can be used for assessment. Additionally, students
can be assessed on the accuracy of the temperature measurements and the minutes
of sunlight records as well as the calculated averages. Since every school
will have different data, it is not possible to provide an answer key here.
Procedure
NOTE: The following instructions for the
Recording the Data and Finding the Averages are printed in the
Project Instructions section of this web
site.
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Step 4: Record the Data & Find the
Averages
Materials
Instructions
- Measure the temperature outside your school each day for 5 days
straight during the week of Dates to be Determined.
In order to standardize the data collected from around the
world, you must:
- Measure the temperature between 11 a.m. and 1 p.m.
- Measure the temperature in the shade.
- Hold the thermometer close to eye level; it should never be
on the ground.
- Do not allow rain or snow to fall on the thermometer.
- Record the temperature each day in degrees Celsius.
Note: This
conversion calculator will convert degrees Fahrenheit to Celsius.
- Record the number of minutes of sunlight per day. This can be
done by recording the sunrise and sunset times each day and then calculating
the number of minutes of sunlight between sunrise and sunset.
- Find the Averages for the week:
- Temperature: Calculate the average temperature for the week
(rounded to the nearest tenth, e.g. 23.1 °C or 25.0 °C)
- Sunlight: Calculate the average minutes of sunlight per day
for the week (rounded to the nearest minute, e.g. 423 minutes)
- Please submit the average Temperature and Number of Minutes of
Sunlight per day to the Project Data
section of this web site.
Note: The Project Data submittal form will be made available immediately
after the data collection week (Dates to be Determined).
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