Lesson 3 • Analysing weather data

Explain that each group needs to use their data to answer the question: We collected weather data for [the day that you completed Lesson 1, referred to for the rest of the lesson as "Monday"]. Based on this data, when was the best time to play outside on [Monday]?

Allow time for the groups to discuss the question and come to consensus on a group answer. Ensure students are providing evidence from the data to inform their answers.

Some points to discuss with students as they work:

• How can we express the “best time”?
  • Providing an exact time, such as 10:30am, suggests that students should play for just 1 minute. Instead, providing a range, such as 10:00-11:30, allows a much longer time to play.
• What if the data does not point to a better time during the day? 
  • Some groups may find that their data does not point to a best time. For example, if students investigated rainfall on a day that did not rain, then the “best time” would be all day.

Each group should create a display, such as a short PowerPoint presentation or a poster in Word. Explain that their displays should include:

• the data collected and represented by the group.
• the answer to the question along with evidence from their data to support their answer.

You could ask students to print their displays so you can create a display of all the data in the classroom.

Ask each group to share their answer to the question: We collected weather data for [Monday]. Based on our data, when is the best time to play outside?. Students should provide evidence from their data to support their answer. Record the students’ answers to the question on the board as a list.

Explain: Each group has determined the best time to play outside based on just one weather element. We have recorded these results on the board as times. Now, we need to answer the question using the data collected by each group.

Ask: How could we organise this data to work out the best time to play outside?

Allow students to offer suggestions. Use one or two student ideas to arrange the data and discuss how these strategies help to analyse the data. One helpful way of arranging the data is illustrated below.

Discuss: What time was the best time to play outside?

• Allow students to share their answers. Make sure they give evidence from the data to support their answer.

The purpose of this discussion is to establish that the collected data answers the question for a day that has already passed, and that we have missed the opportunity to play outside at the best time on that particular day. Collecting data over many days allows for patterns to be observed and more informed predictions to be made about the best time to play outside on future days.

Discuss: We have the data to answer the question about the best time to play outside on [Monday]. That day has been and gone! Do we have enough evidence to predict tomorrow? Or next week? What about next term?

• Establish the need for data over a much longer period of time to make more informed predictions about the best time to play outside on any given day.

Explain: We have a new question for investigation, “What is the best time of day to play outside for each month of the year?”.