Gravestones in the Classroom
We would not encourage you to take large groups of students to a graveyard as many people would be concerned that the sacred aspects of the sites may not be respected. However, small groups which have been coached on the correct way to approach a gravesite to take measurements, who are aware and sensitive to the nature of these sites and when you have permission from the graveyard manager to have them working on site can provide valuable data.
That said, one of the valuable ways students can become involved is looking at data already collected and working through the basic science (and mathematics) required to make some sense form the data. Here are a few ideas:
Local vs other sites
You can have students use the map link on the left hand side and zoom in onto graveyards in their local area. Clicking on the icons brings up some basic data averaged for that graveyard. They can then plat this data onto their own maps and/or do a compare and contract from their local areas to another site - such as a rural site or city site.
Local data against rainfall records
Another interesting study is to compare local data against rainfall records for the area. Those records can be found at many town offices, or online (depending on your country). As the weathering rate is a factor of rainfall, maybe your students can look for correlations and anomalies that exist against the rainfall records.
Data crunching
A major aspect of this project is working with the raw data. It would be very beneficial for students to work with the raw data to see the simple mathematics required to come up with some sensible conclusion from the data collected. Basically, we use simple equations to calculate the rate each stone measured is weathering over 100 years. At is simplest form the equation is :
rate= (largest measurement)-(smallest measurement)/age of the stone X 100
As the factors involved are more complex, then the equation can become more complex to try and reduce human error in measurement and even human error in creating the stone. For example :
rate=((largest measurement+next largest measurement)/2)-((smallest measurement+next smallest measurement)/2)/age of the stone X 100
Once you calculate a rate, you can then plot these against the age of the stone to see how the rate has changed over time. For example, if older stones show an overall rate less than younger stones, does this mean that the rate has increased over time (and so the younger stones show a higher rate)? Is this a reflection of a change in the amount of acid rain? When did the change take place? There are so many questions your students could find and pursue.
To get you started click here to get a spreadsheet of the raw data for 150 gravestones that you can use in your classroom
We would love to see your results from doing any of these studies with your students - and they are welcome to come in and discuss their results in the EarthTrek Forums (under the Gravestone Project).
Project Leaders