Bryant Students Take a Hike to Study Urban Heat Islands

Students from the Salt Lake Center for Science Education-Bryant went hiking in East Canyon on the Mormon Pioneer Trail earlier this fall. They hiked 1.5 miles to East Canyon Reservoir where they enjoyed lunch, took photos, and spent time with their classmates. On their hike, they collected ground surface temperature measurements and compared them to temperature measurements collected at their school. They have used this data to better understand solar radiation, heat transfer, and the law of conservation of energy. 

Back in the classroom, they entered their data into Excel. In math class, they reviewed and created box and whisker plots with nearly 300 data points. In science, they analyzed the data from East Canyon and Bryant alongside NASA satellite data to better understand how different surfaces affect the temperature of an area.