Question Sheet: Snow Traps
Before reading:
- What are snow fences? How do they work?
- Why might it be important to learn about where snow piles up?
During reading:
- How many years has Erica David spent on doing science fair projects about
snow?
- What are the main purposes of a snow fence?
- For lab experiments, which household product makes a suitable substitute for
drifting snow? Why?
- What can be used instead of fences to control snow drifting?
- What does “sublimation” mean?
- Which plants did Erica study as possible snow interceptors?
After reading:
- In the article, what did you learn from the photos and captions that was not evident in the text?
- In Erica’s search for a household substance that would act like drifting
snow in certain ways, what was the independent variable in her experiment? What was the dependent variable? Suggest some other materials that might be suitable substitutes.
- What strategies are used in your community to conserve and collect water?
- Erica says that, in doing a science project, it’s important to choose a
topic that you are passionate about. What are you passionate about? What
sort of experiment could you do?
- If you were a parent, what might you do to help your child compete more
effectively in a science fair?
SOCIAL STUDIES
Compare the average precipitation in your state (or country) to that in Wyoming. Is it higher or lower? In what form does most of this precipitation fall? See www.wrds.uwyo.edu/wrds/wsc/climateatlas/precipitation.html
(University of Wyoming) and www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/online/coop-precip.html (National Climatic Data Center).
LANGUAGE ARTS
- If you were to interview a science fair winner, what would you ask? List
five questions that you would ask.
- Suppose that you are a TV announcer assigned to introduce Erica and her
work. How would you start off your announcement?
- Just looking at the title of this article, what would you expect it to be
about? What might you suggest as a suitable subtitle for this article?
MATHEMATICS
The following table shows the amount of land covered by snow (measured in square kilometers) across North America (excluding Greenland) each month in 2005.
|
Jan.
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Feb.
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March
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April
|
May
|
June
|
July
|
Aug.
|
Sept.
|
Oct.
|
Nov.
|
Dec.
|
|
15.53
|
14.18
|
13.29
|
9.94
|
6.20
|
3.37
|
0.63
|
0.20
|
1.73
|
5.07
|
10.61
|
14.74
|
Plot the data to show how the area of snow cover varied from month to month. In which month was the amount of snow cover lowest? highest? Between which 2 months did the largest change in snow cover occur? Calculate the percentage change in snow cover for each pair of consecutive months. When did the largest percentage increase occur? When did the largest percentage decrease occur?