Initially, students use the geographic visualizations to compare their own data to the data from other schools. By looking at temperature maps over a series of days, weeks, and months, students learn which schools tend to have temperatures like their own. Then they can search out reasons for the similarities. Students may locate schools that they think should have temperatures like their own, but which, in fact, do not. By looking for similarities and differences, making predictions, exploring patterns, and trying to explain anomalies, students increase their understanding of the phenomena which the data describe.
Students can also use the visualizations to explore specific hypotheses.
Using temperature maps, students might investigate whether schools closer to the Equator have warmer temperatures. They may find that this is true, in general, but they may also discover interesting exceptions that can lead to the study of environmental factors influencing temperature. Traditional science instruction seldom asks students to visualize changes in the data over time. Yet if students are to understand global circulation patterns or the rhythms of seasonal change, they need to visualize changes over time in the patterns of the environmental data. Students can run the movie and observe changes over time.