Classroom/Laboratory Activity: Statistical Methods to Determine Historical Temperature Trends

A classroom/laboratory activity to learn about statistical methods to analyze average annual temperatures of major cities in the world (New York and Sydney) and to determine trends in the data.

Students will create histograms to analyze the average annual temperatures; will compare data sets; will learn the use of time series, scatter plots, and the correlation coefficient to determine the statistical significance of temperature trends; and will interpret the results.

Use this tool to help your students find answers to:

  1. Discuss the annual average temperature trends for New York and Sydney for the given data sets.
  2. Use statistical methods to compare the temperature records for the entire period to the temperature records for the past 30 years. Discuss your observations.

About the Tool

Tool Name Historical Temperature Trends
Discipline Statistics
Topic(s) in Discipline Descriptive Statistics, Correlation and Regression Analyses
Climate Topic Climate Variability Record
Type of Tool Laboratory Activity
Grade Level High School, Undergraduate
Location Global
Language English
Translation
Developed by Marina Nechayeva and Steven Cosares
Hosted at Teaching Manual for Elementary Statistics: Society and Environment by Mangala Kothari
Link Link 1, Link 2
Access Online/Offline
Computer Skills Basic
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