Department
of Earth Science |
Northeastern
Illinois University
INTRODUCTION TO EARTH SCIENCE
ESCI 121
Section 05
Fall 2008
Department
of Earth Science |Northeastern
Illinois University
| ACTIVITY FOUR:
Present your stream data. Tape
your graphed discharge data to a sheet of poster paper.
In
LARGE letters that can be read from halfway across the room, show the
following information: w Stream Name w Gage location (name of town) w Dates for which discharge is graphed w Peak flow (in cubic feet per second) w Drainage area w Your name |
| ACTIVITY FIVE: Collect and analyze the class'
collective data. w Use the data collection sheet provided (a clean copy can be printed from the Excel worksheet (legal size paper works best) linked here). w Fill in the data collection sheet by examining the posters around the room. Once your data collection sheet is complete, sit with a group of 2-3 other students and do the following: A) Analyze the data, looking for patterns in the relationships between variables. Look for trends: for example, you might find that whenever variable X increases, so does variable Y. Or, when watersheds are located in a certain kind of area, their graphs seem to exhibit a certain characteristic. Or maybe you'll find that when the storms occur in a certain season, or in a certain type of terrain, the graphs have a certain shape or look to them. For something to be a pattern, it has to show the same relationship repeatedly! B) Choose two of the patterns you listed in Step 1, and for each one of the two patterns, do the following: i) Propose a hypothesis to explain the pattern. (For example, why does variable Y seem to increase every time variable X increases? Explain.) ii) Note any exceptions to the pattern, and explain them. (Why do these streams/graphs not fit the pattern? What's different about them?) |