Track the weather in your area over a two-week period. Use bar graphs and line graphs to illustrate the results of your study in a colorful way!

• 1.

  Graphs allow us to easily identify and compare data as the result of a study. Two common types of graphs are bar graphs and line graphs. Bar graphs use vertical or horizontal rectangles (bars) to represent a specified quantity. Line graphs use points to identify values, and then connect each point with a line that shows the fluctuations in the data. Look at examples of each type of graph with your class. What information is included on each?

• 2.

  Study the local weather with your class over the next two weeks. On the classroom whiteboard, keep track of the temperature if the weather is sunny, cloudy, rainy or windy each day. Will some days be rainy and windy, or sunny and cloudy? For days like these, choose the one description that depicts the day the most.

• 3.

  At the end of the two-weeks, chart your results! Use Crayola® Dry-Erase Markers or Dry-Erase Crayons to create a colorful bar graph on the whiteboard showing how many days were sunny, cloudy, rainy and windy. Display the temperature results using a line graph!

Benefits

• Students define bar graph and line graph.
• Students monitor the temperature and weather in their town for a period of two weeks, and track their results.
• Students analyze the weather data they collect by creating a bar graph and a line graph displaying their findings.

Adaptations

• The weather on any given day will vary in different parts of a state, country or continent! Select any city in the world for your weather-tracking project. Research daily to find the temperature and weather of that city over a period of two weeks. Draw a
• Analyze your class’ results together. Do the numbers make sense? Do the number of sunny, cloudy, windy and rainy days add up to 14 days? Which type of weather was the most common over the two weeks? Examine the line graph to see how much the temperature f