Climate zones of Asia (with cards)

The following activity is designed so that students explore data independently and learn about Asia’s climate zones. The teacher guides the process and encourages students to think critically about the characteristics of each climate zone.

Most of the activity is done without computers — students sort climographs and color maps. You can then continue by demonstrating how a computer would perform the same task.

Introduction and Review

1. Begin by reviewing how to read a climograph. If students haven’t seen one before, introduce it — it’s not difficult. :) Use the large climographs of Lisbon, Prague, and Reykjavik as examples. Discuss which places are cold in winter, which are hot in summer (and which aren’t), and what the rainfall patterns look like.

   
2. 

   Show the climograph for Nicosia and ask which of the three above it most resembles. It’s most similar to Lisbon — both have dry summers. Lisbon gets more rain in winter and is slightly cooler in summer, but the overall pattern, especially for precipitation, is very similar.

Clustering Climographs

1. Divide students into groups of 3–4. Give each group a set ofcards with climographs.

2. 

   Each group sorts the climographs into four clusters based on similar temperature and precipitation patterns. Some groups may start with too many clusters — ask them to merge similar ones. Others may have only three — encourage them to split one if it makes sense.

3. 

   Give each group four empty climographs. They should place one stack of cards on each and draw a representative temperature and precipitation curve for that cluster.

   Avoid using the word “average” — students might not know it or take it too literally. Instead, have them choose the “most typical example” in each pile and copy its pattern.

   Remind them not to mix up the stacks — they’ll need them again later.

4. In the blank space below each climograph, students write a short description of the climate it represents — for example, “high temperatures all year, heavy summer rainfall.” If they already know the names of Asia’s climate zones, they can use them. If not, even better — they’ll discover them through this activity.

5. 

   Each empty climograph has a circle. Students color each one a different color (make sure the colors are distinct). These colors will represent climate zones on the map — the same color will be used to mark the locations belonging to each group.

6. Hand out the maps and have students color the locations according to their groups’ color codes.

7. Compare the results across groups. The chosen colors will vary, of course — but did they create similar clusters? Are places with similar climates located near each other, or are the colors scattered?

Discussing climate zones

Now’s the time for geography-level discussion, depending on the grade. For seventh graders, this activity can serve as an introduction or a review of Asia’s climate zones. For fourth graders, it might be necessary to first explain what the different climates mean.

Can a computer do this too?

Could we sort hundreds of Asian locations the same way? Manually, that would be tedious — and too subjective. This kind of task is perfect for computers. Here we’ll test it only on the same locations used by the students, but it’s easy to imagine analyzing hundreds or thousands in the same way.

1. 

   Open the pre-made Orange workflow. The Data Table widget loads the same data used for the cards. You can double-click the Table widget to see the dataset.

   The Clustering widget is already set to create four clusters, using only temperature and precipitation data — not the names or coordinates of the locations. Leave it as is.

2. 

   Double-click the Map widget. It will show how the computer grouped the locations into four clusters, each marked with a different color — just like the students’ work.

3. 

   You can also explore the climographs within each cluster. Open the Map, Temperature, and Precipitation widgets in parallel.

   • Click on individual locations on the map to view their climographs (in Orange, precipitation is shown as a line rather than bars).
   • You can select multiple locations to see their climographs and the average across them.
   • … or select all locations to compare the average climographs for each cluster.