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Weather Lab 6-8 / Week 11 / Station Day
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Week 11 · The Climate Record

Station Day

Station Day: The question board
// How NOAA and NASA measure a warming planet
⏱ about 20 min

Station Day: The Question Board

Saturday morning, the crew covers the kitchen door with a big sheet of paper and writes QUESTIONS across the top.

"Every scientist starts with a question," Raven says. "So today the whole family asks them."

Rocket writes the first one in giant letters: HOW DO WE KNOW IT IS WARMER?

His uncle adds a smaller one underneath. "How do thermometers from 1880 compare with ours?"

Nova hovers beside the door and softly lights each question as it goes up. "Which of these could a graph answer?" she asks.

Raven draws a tiny bar chart next to three of them. "These. The others need a different kind of evidence."

Rocket steps back and reads the whole board. "This is the best homework wall ever."

  1. NASA and NOAA build the global temperature record from more than 25,000 stations, plus ships, buoys and Antarctic stations.
  2. Scientists use anomalies, the difference from a long-term average, to track change. 2024 was the warmest year in both records.
  3. The greenhouse effect is natural and necessary. Burning coal, oil and gasoline has added greenhouse gases and strengthened it.
  4. Earth has warmed about 2 degrees Fahrenheit since 1850, and the rate since 1975 is more than three times the long-term rate.
  5. Ice cores, sea level and Arctic sea ice all tell the same story. The ocean has absorbed about 90 percent of the extra heat.
◇ THE QUESTION BOARD
Tape a large sheet of paper to a door or wall. Write QUESTIONS across the top.
Each family member writes two questions about Earth's temperature, greenhouse gases or the evidence.
Sort the questions into three groups. Group one: a graph could answer it. Group two: a lab could. Group three: we need other evidence.
Pick one graph question. Use this week's tables to answer it together, and write the answer under the question.
Pick one question nobody can answer yet. Talk about what measurement would be needed.
Leave the board up. Add a new question whenever someone thinks of one.
For a grown-up
This week presented the climate record exactly as NOAA and NASA state it, with no predictions and no blame.
If your student asks what people can do, next week frames the answers as design and community choices. Think shade, cooler buildings and hot-day plans.
You can read the same pages your student used at climate.gov and climate.nasa.gov.
BOARD CHECK
  • Read the question.
  • Tap your answer.
Which of these questions could a temperature graph answer?
What is the baseline NASA uses for its anomalies?
Which evidence comes from old air trapped in ice?

Why questions matter

NGSS standard MS-ESS3-5 asks students to ask questions that clarify evidence of the factors behind the rise in global temperature.

A clarifying question points at a specific piece of evidence. "Is it warmer?" is broad. "Has the warming rate changed since 1975?" is clarifying.

The best question boards mix both kinds, then turn the broad ones into clarifying ones, step by step.

A question that points at one specific piece of evidence is a ____ question. (broad or clarifying)
Both NASA and NOAA say the ____ most recent years are the warmest on record. Type a number.
About how many degrees Fahrenheit has Earth warmed in total since 1850, according to NOAA? Type a number.
WHY THIS EXERCISEThis one number sums up the whole global temperature record.
Station Day reviewTrue or false?
An anomaly compares a reading with a long-term average.?
Carbon dioxide rose faster from 2015 to 2024 than in the 1960s.?
Sea level is rising only because of rain.?
NASA found the Sun's energy has not increased since 1880.?
WHY THIS EXERCISEThese facts are the ones your family board will keep coming back to.
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