Goals of the Warming Meadow Experiment Investigation
Build student skills in:
- asking scientific questions,
- querying disparate data sets,
- using descriptive statistics,
- understanding experimental design,
- conducting open-ended inquiries, and
- constructing an argument from data.
Data Sets
This exercise is based on annual summary data from the control and experimental plots (aboveground carbon, soil carbon, soil temperature, soil moisture, snow melt date) provided by Dr. John Harte, UC Berkeley
Teaching Strategies
Potential Additional Pre-reading Assignments for Students
If you wish to assign some pre-lab reading, the following article from The Aspen Daily News (2007) may be of interest: Climate Change May Spur Loss of Mountain Meadows, Forest Shifts.
Suggestions for Pre-assignment Lecture Topics and Tools
Explain basic statistics (mean, minimum, maximum, range) and regression analysis (what it is, r-squared, P) and the concept of “statistical significance”.
Check out billy’s Data Visualizer, loaded with billy barr’s phenology observations and climate summaries, this tool could be useful as a demonstration during lecture or as a first step for students to become familiarized with other useful RMBL data.
To familiarize your students with the environment around RMBL, try showing Sarah Rudeen’s slides (www.youtube.com/embed/lK75xLdTRlE) of RMBL plants, animals, and landscapes.
Instructional Strategies Behind Activities
This is a very open-ended activity and was meant as a follow on piece to the Biology of Climate Change module.
