Slow Reveal Graphs: Water Cycle Extremes

  • Released Thursday, October 17, 2024
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Slow reveal graphs are an instructional routine using scaffolded visuals and discourse to help students (in K-12 and beyond) make sense of data. This is a slow reveal graph of the SVS visualization of rising Water Cycle Extremes: Droughts and Pluvials.

Slide 1: Just the bubbles, no numbers or keys

No description available.
  • What do you notice, what do you wonder? Allow students to give a variety of answers – blue and red/pink dots, they’re lined up. all the blue dots are above the pink/red, etc. Allow time for a variety of things they notice.
  • Do you see any pattern to the placement, size or color of the dots? Other than what they’ve noticed, be sure to ask about where all the blue dots are, where the larger and smaller dots are located, etc.
  • Where are the largest dots located? The smallest dots?
  • Are there any lines of dots that are shorter or longer? Do you see a pattern to the length of the lines? This is a critical point.
  • Is there a relationship between the length of the line and the size of the dots in the line?
  • Are all the blue dots the same color blue? What about the dots on the bottom half?

Slide 2: Add the years

No description available.
  • What’s different, what’s the same? Students should notice that the years have been added.
  • How many years of data does this represent?
  • Do you have any hypothesis for what this data might represent for each year?

Slide 3: Add the key

No description available.
  • What information has been added? What does it tell us?
  • Now that we know that the blue is ‘Wet’ and the red/pink is “Dry”, what do you think each dot represents?
  • Why do you think the ones on the left are lighter in color than the ones on the right?
  • Before we go to the next slide, I want to let you know that all the dots are going to move.
    • I want you to see if you can recognize the shape of the dots. I’ll play it a few times, and I want you to watch it quietly, without saying anything!

Video 4 – move the swarm into place, no map

  • Play the clip of the swarm moving 4-5 times, or more, to allow students to internalize what’s happening and how the data is moving.
  • Turn and talk to your partner and tell them what you notice and ask what they wonder.
  • What do you notice and what do you wonder? Allow sharing of thoughts.
  • Where did the large dots move? Where are the smaller dots?
  • Does anyone have any guesses about why they are placed where they are now? It’s possible they may recognize the shapes of the continents. Don’t tell them if they don’t!
  • Any ideas on why there are no dots in some places?

Video 5 – Bring in the map

  • Play the clip several times so students can see the fade in of the world map.
  • What do we see in the display now? Students should see the placement of the dots on all the continents.
  • Where are ALL the dots? On the land masses.
  • Where are there NO dots? On the water
  • What does ‘Dry’ and ‘Wet’ mean? These are years when there were ‘Dry’ events – ‘droughts’ – and ‘Wet events – ‘Pluvials' - these are occurrences of extreme precipitation or drought.
  • Where are the largest dots?
  • What color are the largest dots?
  • Are there places where there are NO dots? What does this mean?
  • Are there any continents that have NO dots? Antarctica
  • On the next slide, the swarm is going to move back to the lines/years. I want you to watch and see where the largest dots move. Have them point out the largest dots –assign each to a student in the classroom.

Video 6 – Going back to the lines

  • Let them watch the clip several times so they can see where their dot landed and know the year where it corresponds.

About this Visualization

In a study of 20 years of data from the NASA/German GRACE and GRACE-FO satellites, NASA scientists confirmed that major droughts and pluvials — periods of excessive precipitation and water storage on the landscape — have been occurring more often. They also found that the worldwide intensity of these extreme wet and dry events – a metric that combines extent, duration, and severity — is closely linked to global warming. Warmer air causes more moisture to evaporate from Earth's surface during dry events; warm air can also hold more moisture to fuel severe snow- and rainfall events.
Floods and droughts account for more than 20% of the economic losses caused by extreme weather events in the U.S. each year, ranked second after hurricanes among major disasters. The economic impacts are similar around the world, though the human toll tends to be most devastating in poor and developing nations.

Credits

Please give credit for this item to:
NASA's Scientific Visualization Studio

This page was originally published on Thursday, October 17, 2024.
This page was last updated on Thursday, October 17, 2024 at 5:13 PM EDT.

Related papers

Rodell, M., and B. Li, 2023: Changing intensity of hydroclimatic extreme events revealed by GRACE and GRACE-FO, Nature Water, doi:10.1038/s44221-023-00040-5. https://www.nature.com/articles/s44221-023-00040-5