Collecting, Analyzing, and Talking About Data

- by Skip Pendleton

Skip Pendelton is a grade 5-8 science teacher at the Lyme School, Lyme, NH. Skip has used the EaSiE project to connect weather conditions in a rural town to the summit of Mt Washington and the Gulf of ME. The resources provided students an opportunity to collect, analyze, and talk about data.

Classroom Context
Lyme School is a small K-8 school with a total enrollment of about 200 students. Usually there is one classroom of students at each grade level. Classroom size varies from as few as 16 students to as many as 24. Exceptions arise due to changes in student populations. For example, during the last school year there were two classrooms at the fifth grade level and two first grade classrooms. I supervise the sixth grade homeroom and teach science to grades 5-8. Most years I have one class at each of the three of the grade levels and two classes at one of the grade levels. This year it was Grade 5. The Lyme School District is probably the smallest district in the state of New

Hampshire, and Lyme School is the only school in the district. Lyme is a rural/suburban community in the Upper Valley of the Connecticut River. Many of the children who attend the school come from homes of well-educated parents employed in professional fields. There is strong community support for the school, which is located near the town common, library, and the small business district.

Purpose of Involvement
I joined the EaSiE project to find interesting ways to have students use both local weather data and weather data collected with NOAA resources to develop skills of data analysis and develop an understanding of natural systems. I wanted the students to learn how to analyze the weather observations that they collected over time by making graphs, observing trends in data patterns, and by exploring the relationship of weather conditions between Lyme, NH, the summit of Mount Washington, and the Gulf of Maine. I hoped that the students would develop an understanding that the Gulf of Maine and the adjacent New England landmass form a subsystem of the greater weather systems of the North American continent and the Atlantic Ocean.

Lessons
The unit on weather technology that I normally taught to the sixth graders each fall was preceded by the EaSiE Systems unit. The goal was to have the students use a systems point of view as they worked through the unit and to continue looking at our regional weather as a system throughout the year. As the students learned about different weather instruments, we began recording basic weather data from the school weather station. This wireless unit is fixed to the school roof, but it is visible from the science room. Soon thereafter we began to record observations from the Cashes Ledge buoy by accessing the Northeastern Regional Association of Coastal Ocean Observing Systems (NERACOOS) web site (http://neracoos.org/) to learn about the conditions in the Gulf of Maine. Observations were also taken from the Mount Washington Observatory website (http://www.mountwashington.org/weather/conditions.php) to find data from the summit of New England’s tallest peak. Each child was responsible for recording the observations from these three locations at the beginning of each science class on their personal data table. At the beginning of each class two students were chosen to record the observations from our classroom weather receiver onto their record sheets. Then they read aloud the data for their classmates to record. Next I projected the web pages for Mount Washington and then Cashes Ledge with the ceiling mounted classroom projector on the classroom screen for the selected students to record and read aloud. Each day, one student in the pair would be replaced by a new pupil. The new pupil would learn how to find the data from the child who had presented in the previous class. We recorded four weather factors each day. These were temperature, wind speed, wind direction, and total precipitation. Temperature, wind speed, and wind direction are the only measures available from Mount Washington. Total precipitation was recorded only for Lyme School. As the year went on the children noticed that there were other observations available at the NERACOOS site. We began recording water temperature and sharing wave height information also. The children often would guess the wave height after they had learned that day’s wind conditions. They were also intrigued by the wind chill conditions on Mount Washington, so this information was usually also shared. Recording this data usually took about five minutes. After about a month I stopped projecting the data on the screen and the well practiced routine cut down on the class time needed for this procedure.

Significance and Reflections
Numerous expected and unexpected opportunities for skills development occurred from this activity. The children practiced recording data in a table. Each child had a chance to practice his or her public speaking skills twice a month using a well-rehearsed set of procedures, and there was always an opportunity for discussion about the differences in data or unexpected readings. Throughout the year each child had a terrific pile of observations to use to practice data analysis skills by creating graphs. By the second month of school we had enough observations to begin making graphs. At first the children made the graphs by hand. After they had developed a solid understanding of a quality graph they were assigned the same graph on the computer. Each graph was evaluated through use of the acronym “KLINT” which stands for Key-Label-Intervals-Neatness-Title. The children used this tool to be sure that they used a Key for unlabeled lines or symbols, labeled the x and y axes, made the units on the axes of equal intervals, produced Neat graphs by using a ruler to keep lines straight and printing in straight horizontals or verticals, and had a Title that clearly told what the graph presented. The most obvious and significant impact for me of implementing the EaSiE lessons was the ways that the children took an interest in the necessary skills of collecting and analyzing weather data. The children and I looked forward to finding out the local weather conditions and comparing those statistics to the conditions on Mount Washington and at Cashes Ledge. I also had a reason to collaborate with the Lyme School technology teacher. She used the weather data to teach graphing on the computer in the sixth grade. Using spreadsheets and producing graphs are part of the middle school technology curriculum. Later in the year the children were better prepared for the annual spring science fair because they had become accustomed to using data tables and graphs for collecting and analyzing their observations.

One of the most significant aspects of the EaSiE project for myself as a professional middle school science educator was the numerous times that the participants met. We came from different schools with varied teaching situations. Districts ranged from rural to urban. Some worked in self-contained classrooms and taught all subjects while others taught five periods of one subject to one grade each day. The great discussions, brain storming sessions, and speakers gave me many ideas that I brought back and used and will use in the future, in one way or another, with my middle school students. My students have been able to use technology for collecting and analyzing real data and, in so doing, have developed a better understanding of two important parts of the scientific process: making observations (data collection) and analyzing observations (graphing). Another benefit of the project was that the sixth grade class has been regularly collecting real environmental data in an on-going process that enabled them to get a better idea of the systems that drive the big weather picture. The technology teacher has been enthusiastically involved in the EaSiE project. I have shared the graphing skills that my students have developed with the math teachers. As I am the sole science educator at Lyme School, the individuals who have benefitted most from this endeavor are my students and myself.