OpenSciEd Unit 6.3 · Lesson 02 · 2.A
Look for: There are more days of hail in the middle of…
From Teacher Edition
Facilitation guidance from the lesson plan — what to notice in student thinking and how to respond while teaching.
Building towards
2.A.1 Analyze and interpret data using graphical displays (e.g., maps, charts, graphs, tables) of large data sets to identify temporal and spatial patterns in the range of weather conditions that lead to the formation of precipitation (hail).
What to look / listen for
Ideas about patterns for where hailstorms occur:
- There are more days of hail in the middle of the country.
- There aren’t very many days of hail on the west coast, particularly near the ocean.
- Some places have a lot of hail (more than 13 days).
What to do
If students struggle with interpreting the color and number notations on the map, project and annotate the map by asking them to give examples of what the map is showing; for example, Where is a location that has more than 10 days of large hail? How do you know? If students struggle with identifying patterns, pose questions such as, Are there places that have more days of hail than others? or provide sentence starters such as, There are more days of large hail in ________. Places that don’t have much hail include ________.
Transition to the hail weather data. Say, So, maybe if we zoomed in on some of these locations we could find out more about what is going on when hailstorms happen.