Answer Key to Lesson 7 Student WorksheetsStudents have now finished taking the last of their GLOBE measurements. In today’s lesson, students will compile and analyze their data. The goal of today’s lesson is for students to explore relationships between ozone and the other factors that they measured. Students will analyze the data from the six GLOBE measurements – ozone, cloud cover, humidity, air temperature, surface temperature, and wind direction. They will do this by using simple calculations and by creating charts, graphs, and pictures to represent their data. These calculations and graphs will allow students to see trends in their data. For example, students may find that temperature is positively correlated to the amount of low-level ozone present (as they discovered is true in Smog City 2 in Lesson 5). However, if the data shows no clear trends or atypical correlations (e.g., ozone highest on cool, cloudy days), students must not be discouraged. Instead, explain possible reasons for anomalous results: 1) five days may be too little data for students to find typical relationships between factors, and 2) factors that cannot be measured at one school (e.g., daily fluctuations in emissions; complex wind flow patterns) also affect the creation of low-level ozone. Students should understand that this is also part of experimental design, and that they would probably be able to come up with more accurate conclusions if they took the GLOBE measurements for a much a longer period of time.
After students have reached their conclusions, they will be able to compare them to their original hypotheses. Students will also be given a chance to compare and communicate their findings with other students.
Students will most likely find the following correlations in their data. However, actual results may vary due to the small number of data points collected and factors beyond the scope of these measurements that affect ozone:
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