Part 5: Advanced Albedo Investigation

Guiding  Question:

Determined by the student. 

**Note:  This is appropriate for upper-level students as a capstone or long-term project in place of the Guided Albedo Investigation. Requires experience with Excel or another spreadsheet tool.

Materials:

Estimated Time: 

What to do and how to do it:

  1. INTRODUCTION: Briefly discuss how to formulate a research question and a hypothesis, and describe the difference between the two.  Discuss the scientific process (i.e. the GLOBE Model for Student Scientific Research in the Planning Guide for Scientific Research) and the importance of flexibility when conducting a scientific investigation (i.e. as you go, you may have to change directions, or re-define your research question based on what tools and resources are available). 
  2. Students use the Planning Guide for Scientific Research and resources available on the Student Climate Data Advanced Albedo Investigation webpage to plan and carry out a self-designed scientific investigation. 
  3. Students synthesize their results (in written, graphical, and/or presentation format). See the Communicating Findings and Results page for guidelines, examples and rubrics.

Assessment

  1. Use the Checklist for Student Work, or your own rubric, to assess the quality of student work.
  2. Have students either informally report out to the class on the overall results/trends of their study (orally or using chart paper, the smartboard, etc.) or create a formal report. For suggestions, rubrics, and examples of formal reports, see the GLOBE Carbon Cycle Communicating Findings page.