Comparative Analysis Learning Activity
Water, water everywhere! How does it compare?

Purpose: See how water characteristics can vary with location. Encourage students to see how other sites compare to theirs. To illustrate to students how the scientists are beginning to explore their data and to encourage students to begin their own data analyses.

Overview: Students will be asked to examine initial student data which scientists at the University of Arizona have identified from the GLOBE data set. After reading the scientist's comments about the data, students will then be asked to find additional data from the schools to explore potential answers posed, or to pose questions of their own.

Time Ongoing all year.

Level intermediate and advanced.

Key Concepts and Skills
  • Concepts: water characteristics vary (within some limits),data are used to pose questions, data are used to answer questions
  • Skills: graphing, making comparisons over space and time, analyzing data for trends and differences,forming hypotheses, testing hypotheses, using the GLOBE database

Materials and Tools

Pencil and graph paper, or computer tools.

Preparation Collect GLOBE data.

Prerequisites: Do Waterwalk

Background:

Although it sometimes takes many years to develop a dataset to explore or answer questions about a site, scientists at the University of Arizona have already begun to examine the GLOBE Hydrology data which are now coing in. As of January, 1997, only a few schools had reported data from Phase II protocols (which were implemented in the Fall of 1996). A list of these schools and brief reports about the data that have been submitted has been posted on the Hydrology homepage. More data have been recorded from GLOBE I protocols (temperature and pH). Short reports on interesting trends in these data are also available from the Hydrology homepage.

As more and more data become available in the archive, scientists will be continuing their efforts to understand more and to ask questions. Students can assist in this effort by monitoring and analyzing the data over time from their own sites as well as from other sites around the globe and sharing their ideas and research with others in the GLOBE network.

What to Do and How to Do It:

1. Read the data reports from the GLOBE Hydrology homepage. These reports will be updated periodically.

Hydrology Nov. 5, 1996 Report: http://www.hwr.arizona.edu/globe/Hydro/D1/d115.html

Hydrology Oct. 31, 1996 Report: http://www.hwr.arizona.edu/globe/Hydro/D1/d106.html

Conductivity Report: http://www.hwr.arizona.edu/globe/Hydro/D2/d0111.html

Alkalinity Report:http://www.hwr.arizona.edu/globe/Hydro/D2/d1230.html

Dissolved Oxygen Report: http://www.hwr.arizona.edu/globe/Hydro/D2/d0104.html

2. Have students formulate hypotheses about answers to the questions posed, or ask new questions regarding the data.

3. Search the GLOBE data server for the schools which you find most interesting. Pull down the data from those schools to find the most current data reported since the reports were written.

4. Ask students to analyze the new data to see if questions were addressed or if more questions were posed by data taken since the reports. Students may analyze data by graphing, using GLOBE visualizations to map data and identify regional trends, compare data from control sites that they identify from the GLOBE server, compare data from other sources, or use any other appropriate method.

5. Investigate other data sets from the school to try and answer questions. Ask students to try and identify correlations between changes in the hydrology data and in other data.

6. Use GLOBEmail to ask questions students may have about the data which are not answered by their own research. Share results of their investigations with other schools.

7. Ask students to critically examine their own data to look for patterns or ask questions and begin to explore their own site.

Further Investigations:

As more data are added to the GLOBE data server, continue to identify schools which are of interest to you. Find schools in locations similar to your own. Are their hydrology data simialr to yours? Investigate any differences you find.

Student Assessment:

  1. Ask students to identify expected trends in their hydrology data and explain their hypotheses.
  2. Ask students what data they would use to investigate anomalies in their hydrology data.
  3. Ask students to find and graph data from a particular school.

Training Use www-based tutorials. Hydrology science team will provide prototypes from our database and using GLOBE data.

Systems Graphical support would help, e.g. user-defined time series plots. Also support to generate time-averaged means within the database. Need maps of watersheds and geologic regions to aid in placing GLOBE hydrology sites in context.

Notes & comments:

Mail comments to roger@hwr.arizona.edu