Provided by: My NASA Data |Published on: April 27, 2021
Activity - Classroom
6789101112
Synopsis
In this math game, students analyze a graph showing air temperature changes over time and identify trends.
Students use "data literacy cubes" and differentiated question sets to guide their exploration.
Students take turns rolling the cube and answering the corresponding question from the Graph Cube Question Sheet. This is repeated until all questions are answered.
This activity is great to use as a warm-up task, hook, or bell ringer.
The cube and question sets could be used to analyze other graphs as well.
Additional Prerequisites
Students should be familiar with the concept of global surface temperature.
The teacher needs time to prepare the cubes. Alternatively, teachers can use dice or virtual dice instead of the cube.
Teachers can request access to the answer keys via email.
Differentiation
This can be used as an individual or group activity.
The question sheets are leveled to provide easy differentiation for teachers. The sheets are labeled with a letter: A for beginner, B for intermediate, C for advanced, and D for English Language Learners.
This activity can be done virtually by using a virtual dice application instead of the cube and using the provided google forms instead of the question sheets.
NASA offers petabytes of global Earth science data collected from satellites, but accessing these data in a traditional (or virtual) science classroom can be tricky. Since 2004, My NASA Data has supported students and teachers of grades 3-12 in analyzing and interpreting NASA mission data.
Related Teaching Resources
All resources can be used for your educational purposes with proper attribution to the content provider.