The New York City area, alone, has experienced roughly a foot of sea-level rise in the past century. Global tide measurements from tide gauges suggest the global sea level rose approximately 3.4 millimeters (0.13 inches) per year over the past century. In recent history, starting around 7,000 years ago, sea level became quite steady, but over the last century, it’s been rising. Using a variety of methods, scientists have concluded that global sea level – the average height of the sea surface across the planet – has varied substantially throughout history, especially in response to the ice ages. Depending on students’ familiarity with spreadsheets, the activity may need to be split into two days: one day for entering the data into spreadsheets and one day for analyzing the data.Otherwise, if students don’t have the skills to transfer the data into a spreadsheet, create graphs using the CSV (comma separated values) files. If you plan to have students transfer data into spreadsheet software, have them use the text files to do so.

Some groups or individuals may need to examine multiple data sets in order to model all 20 sets. Students will examine all 20 data sets to learn how scientists study data over short and long periods of time. Depending on class size, the steps in “Procedures” can be done by individuals or groups of students. For this activity, 130 years of sea-level measurements have been divided into 20 data sets for examination.Spreadsheet software (e.g., Microsoft Excel or Google Sheets) Management

Materialsĭata files – download text files | CSV files They will then determine whether sea-level rise is occurring based on the data.

In this activity, students will use sea-level rise data to create models and compare short-term trends to long-term trends. › Explore more on the Teachable Moments Blog Overview See ' Celebrate Earth Day with NASA Science Data' This activity is related to a Teachable Moment from April 12, 2017.

Excel graph of carbon 14 half life