Analyze and graph a real or provided monthly temperature and precipitation data set for two contrasting locations, and use it to classify each climate.
Numbers on a page become meaningful once you turn them into a picture. A climate graph typically plots each month of the year along the bottom and shows average temperature as a line and average precipitation as bars, letting you see, at a glance, which months are hot or cold, wet or dry, for a specific location. Comparing two climate graphs side by side is one of the clearest ways to see how different two places really are, even if they are in the same state.
This week's project uses two contrasting California locations: coastal Eureka, cool and rainy nearly year-round, and desert Death Valley, extremely hot and dry nearly year-round. The approximate data below gives average monthly temperature (degrees F) and precipitation (inches) for each. Graphing and comparing this real-world-shaped data lets you classify each location's climate using evidence, not a guess.
Mastery looks like: They can graph monthly temperature and precipitation data and use the resulting pattern to classify and compare two climates with evidence.
Common stumbles: Reading a single month's data instead of the whole year's pattern; describing the graphs without connecting back to the climate factors that explain them.