Climate data analysis
Our atmosphere and climate 2020 is an environmental report produced by the Ministry for the Environment and Stats NZ. The report uses extensive long-term datasets to demonstrate some of the observed physical changes and broadscale effects in New Zealand that have been caused by climate change. Stats NZ makes these datasets available to the public. This activity uses Google Data Studio to enable students to visualise and filter datasets of interest.
There are 27 datasets to choose from:
15 datasets pertaining to weather including temperature, rainfall, drought, growing days, frosts, winds and fire risks. The datasets provide 30+ years of weather data for 30 locations across New Zealand.
11 datasets pertaining to greenhouse gas concentration emissions. The datasets cover emissions from 1990–2016. The initial dataset covers broad categories – energy, industry, agriculture, land use and waste. Subsequent datasets become narrower and more refined.
1 dataset pertaining to atmospheric ozone.
Update
The Data Studio pages are currently not working, but we are working on a fix for this.
Email us if you'd like to be notified when they are working again.
Ministry for the Environment data can still be accessed here.
Please note: the Data Studio pages contain extensive information – there may be short delays while navigating through the pages and datasets.
Access the New Zealand climate data analysis Google Data Studio pages here.
Curriculum applications
The purpose of the activity is to introduce students to the datasets using an inquiry-based approach. This has applications across multiple curriculum areas. For example:
agricultural and horticultural sciences
Earth systems and the carbon cycle
human impacts on ecosystems
statistical investigations using the statistical enquiry cycle
investigating impacts on health, wellbeing and/or the economy.
Videos
The following videos introduce the New Zealand climate data analysis datasets and explain how to filter, visualise and explore data.
Climate data analysis – an introduction
Jason Morgan demonstrates some of the functions of Google Data Studio. In this introductory video, Jason shows us how to navigate the New Zealand climate data analysis home page and how to filter by location and date.
Climate data analysis – ways of representing data – exploring Data Studio functions/ways to visual data.
climate data analysis – specific weather data – exploring how to drill down into specific datasets.
climate data analysis – greenhouse gas and ozone data – filtering by sector and level to move from broad datasets to more specific datasets.
Climate data analysis – ways of representing data
Jason Morgan demonstrates some of the functions of Google Data Studio. Jason uses information from the No Rain Days dataset to show different ways to visualise data.
Climate data analysis – an introduction – navigating the home page and filtering by location and date.
Climate data analysis – specific weather data – exploring how to drill down into specific datasets.
Climate data analysis – greenhouse gas and ozone data – filtering by sector and level to move from broad datasets to more specific datasets.
Climate data analysis – specific weather data
Jason Morgan demonstrates some of the functions of Google Data Studio. Jason shows us how to drill down into specific weather datasets, using growing degrees, fire risks and frosts datasets as examples.
Climate data analysis – an introduction – navigating the home page and filtering by location and date.
Climate data analysis – ways of representing data – exploring Data Studio functions/ways to visual data.
Climate data analysis – greenhouse gas and ozone data – filtering by sector and level to move from broad datasets to more specific datasets.
Climate data analysis – greenhouse gas and ozone data
Jason Morgan demonstrates some of the functions of Google Data Studio. In this video, Jason shows us how to navigate the greenhouse gas datasets. Each dataset enables users to filter by date and sector. The data becomes more specific as users navigate through 10 levels of emissions information.
Climate data analysis – an introduction – navigating the home page and filtering by location and date.
Climate data analysis – ways of representing data – exploring Data Studio functions/ways to visual data.
Climate data analysis – specific weather data – exploring how to drill down into specific datasets.
Learning outcomes
By the end of this activity, students should be able to:
discuss components of selected Data Studio pages
discuss and interpret data presented in selected pages
discuss why the information is important
ask questions about data of interest
consider how the data can be used to inform people about changes in New Zealand’s climate and the effects we are beginning to see
consider how the data can be used to inform people about New Zealand’s greenhouse gas emissions.
Download the Word file for additional teaching support and student worksheet (see link below).
