by Timothy McDonnell
Victor Junior High School
Victor, New York
CONNECTION TO NATIONAL GEOGRAPHY STANDARDS:
The geographically informed person knows and understands…
Std. 2 - How to use mental maps to organize information about
people, places, and environments.
Std. 7 - The physical processes that shape the patterns of Earth’s
surface.
Std. 15 - How physical systems affect human systems.
CONNECTION TO THE NEW YORK STATE MATH/SCIENCE/TECHNOLOGY
STANDARDS:
Std. 3.4 - Students use mathematical modeling/multiple representation
to provide a means of presenting, interpreting, communicating, and connecting
mathematical information and relationships.
Std. 3.7 - Students use patterns and functions to develop mathematical
power…and construct generalizations that describe patterns simply and
efficiently.
Std. 4.2 - Many of the phenomena that we observe on Earth involve
interactions among components of air, water, and land.
OBJECTIVES: (to know, to do, and to be like)
1. Students will graphically represent climatic data by constructing
climagraphs.
2. Students will use latitude and longitude to locate places on a map.
3. Students will describe patterns of temperature change and precipitation
and relate them to physical features of the region.
MATERIALS:
Spreadsheet of climatic data of Washington
State, outline map of Washington, atlases, climagraph templates,
Activity Worksheet (in pdf format).
PROCEDURES:
1. Discuss with students some of the factors that influence climate
(insolation, elevation, nearness to oceans, etc.).
2. Assign each student a city in Washington near or on the 48th parallel.
Give them the spreadsheet and the outline map. Have them locate all the
cities on the map, using latitude and longitude for reference.
3. Instruct them how to make the climagraph. The average monthly
temperatures should be plotted as a line graph, and the monthly precipitation
should be plotted as a bar graph.
4. Instruct the students on how to statistically evaluate the climagraph
of their city (Part One).
5. Assign students to groups, with every city on the spreadsheet represented.
They should collaboratively complete Part Two of the worksheet. They will
need an atlas to help them discover the relationship of large bodies of
water and mountain ranges on climate patterns.
SUGGESTED STUDENT ASSESSMENT:
1. Check outline maps, climagraphs, and the Activity Worksheet to monitor
their progress.
2. Show them a climagraph of some other Northwest city (i.e. Vancouver,
Bend, or Kamloops, B.C.). See if they can infer the probable location of
that city based on their understanding of climatic patterns in this region.
ADAPTATIONS AND EXTENSIONS:
1. Student can generate their own climate spreadsheet. One good internet
source is World Climate (www.worldclimate.com).
The data can be imported into most spreadsheet programs.
2. Younger students might have problems with the Climagraph. So, they
might be more successful if they plot temperature and precipitation on
separate graphs.
3. Apply this climatic pattern to the biomes and human activities of
the region (temperate rainforests of the Olympic peninsula, and irrigated
apple orchards of eastern Washington, etc.).