Auxiliary+Assignments

 

WHAT?  Technology based science assignments that are not related to what we are doing in class They are primarily HOMEWORK assignments.....very little class time will be provided. That means coming after school to work if you don't have access to excel & the internet at home!  WHY ?!?  I've said it before..… in real life, no one is going to ask you how far a ball will go if you launch it with velocity 10 m/s at a 32 angle!   But you __will__ be asked to gather information, follow directions, work independently, interpret information, use technology, and communicate your thinking.

But it’s not even physics!  It __is__ physics!!  <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Yard Sale'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-themecolor: text1;">Pretty much all science is Physics <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Yard Sale'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-tab-count: 2; msotabcount: 2; msothemecolor: text1;"> <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Yard Sale'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-themecolor: text1;">in some way. <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Yard Sale'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-spacerun: yes; msospacerun: yes; msothemecolor: text1;"> <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Yard Sale'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-themecolor: text1;">Visiting earth science topics Is good prep for science PSSA’s! <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Yard Sale'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-themecolor: text1;">

__ASSIGNMENT #1__ : <span style="color: #c00000; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%; msothemecolor: text1;"> <span style="color: #c00000; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 130%; line-height: 115%; msothemecolor: text1;">TRACKING EVIDENCE OF GLOBAL CHANGE DUE: 4:00 PM Monday Nov 2 in dropbox <span style="color: #c00000; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 8pt;">You will download actual data from the Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center (CDIAC) <span style="color: #c00000; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 8pt; mso-spacerun: yes; msospacerun: yes;"> <span style="color: #c00000; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 8pt;">at Oak Ridge National Laboratories in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. <span style="color: #c00000; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 8pt; mso-spacerun: yes; msospacerun: yes;"> <span style="color: #c00000; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 8pt;">CDIAC is the primary clearinghouse for data on atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations. In particular, data representing actual CO2 measurements are available for download from these sites. Your task <span style="color: #c00000; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 8pt; mso-spacerun: yes; msospacerun: yes;"> <span style="color: #c00000; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 8pt;">is to download those data and parse them into a spreadsheet and create your own customized plots of atmospheric CO2 levels. <span style="color: windowtext; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';"> =<span style="color: windowtext; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">You will be going back & forth between these directions, the data website, and a spreadsheet a lot today. <span style="color: windowtext; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; mso-spacerun: yes; msospacerun: yes;"> <span style="color: windowtext; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">I'll have hard copies of the directions when the whole thing is complete!! =
 * <span style="color: #c00000; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;">This assignment is modified from one used in the “Earth Systems Science” course at the University of Arkansas **

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">1. Click here for Mauna Loa Data

<span style="color: windowtext; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">2. At the top of the page, click on the "Digital Data" link. <span style="color: #c00000; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;">You will see a very large table of data arranged by year (rows) and months (columns <span style="color: windowtext; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;">). <span style="color: windowtext; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';"> 3. Right click and "Select All". <span style="color: windowtext; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; mso-spacerun: yes; msospacerun: yes;"> <span style="color: windowtext; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">Right click again and "Copy".

4. Open an Excel spreadsheet, click in cell A1 and “Paste” <span style="color: #c00000; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;">It will look weird all dumped in one cell --- but we’ll fix it! What we need to do is move each of the data entries to a single cell of the spreadsheet. This process is called "parsing" <span style="color: windowtext; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';"> 5. Select column A and under the “Data” tab select “Text to Columns” <span style="color: #c00000; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;"> <span style="color: #800000; font-family: 'Arial Narrow','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; msospacerun: yes;"> <span style="color: #c00000; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;">You will see a dialogue box which will ask you questions regarding the specific methods you want to use for parsing the data. <span style="color: windowtext; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';"> 6. Under the "Original Data Type" select the radio button for "Delimited".

7. Scroll the data preview screen to row 15 ( <span style="color: windowtext; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;">this should show the months <span style="color: windowtext; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">) and click "Next" <span style="color: #c00000; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;">A new dialogue box appears asking what kind of delimiters are in the data. A delimiter is a symbol which separates individual data entries. This symbol may be a tab, space, comma, etc. Our data are delimited by spaces. <span style="color: windowtext; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';"> 8. Check the "Space" box and the "Treat consecutive delimiters as one" box. <span style="color: #c00000; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;">In the data preview, you will see the data arranged in nice columns. <span style="color: windowtext; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">

9. Click "Next". <span style="color: windowtext; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; mso-spacerun: yes; msospacerun: yes;"> <span style="color: windowtext; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">And in the next dialogue box, click "Finish" <span style="color: #c00000; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;">Notice that the text headers at the top of the data set will be parsed as well, which makes them rather unreadable, but we don't need them, so….. <span style="color: windowtext; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';"> 10. Delete the header rows (the bunch of rows at the top before the actual data)

11. Save this file as: <span style="color: windowtext; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; mso-spacerun: yes; msospacerun: yes;"> **<span style="color: windowtext; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt;">AUX1_(3first)(3last) **<span style="color: windowtext; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; msospacerun: yes;"> <span style="color: #c00000; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;">Example: <span style="color: #c00000; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; mso-spacerun: yes; msospacerun: yes;"> <span style="color: #c00000; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;">Barack Obama’s file would be : <span style="color: #c00000; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; mso-spacerun: yes; msospacerun: yes;"> <span style="color: #c00000; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;">AUX1_BarOba Notice there are no parenthesis in real file name!!!

12. Rename the 3 sheets across the bottom: Data, Graph, & Questions

13. Delete the row for 1964.

14. Make a graph: Select the all the YEARS (do NOT include 1958! ...start with 1959) Hold control key and select the data in the AVERAGE column (do NOT include the ave from 1958) Use SCATTER but pick the one WITH a line (left on top row) Label axes & give an appropriate title. (no legend)

15. Copy the graph & paste it on the GRAPH page. Delete the graph from the DATA page.

16. Format the y-axis to better fit the data. It should NOT start at 0

17. Questions to answer on the Questions sheet: (make it look nice / easily read) <span style="color: windowtext; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';"> 1. Where is Mauna Loa? 2. What does ppmv stand for? 3. How much has the atmospheric CO2 concentration changed since 1959 in ppmv? 4. What percent increase over the starting value is this? 5. How much (on average) has CO2 increased each year? 6. How did you determine your answer to #5 __using your spreadsheet__? 7. Does the rate of rise in CO2 appear to be decreasing? Why or why not? 8. When is CO2 at Mauna Loa at its lowest level? 9. When is it at its highest? <span style="color: windowtext; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 150%;"> 10. What process(es) cause the Mauna Loa data to be oscillatory? .......like what a graph of oscillatory data would look like...... or what it means to oscillate.....
 * 1) 10 doesn't make much sense since the data ISN'T oscillatory! ....but write SOMETHING