This is a very thorough student driven investigation intended to show the inter-relationships between weather concepts as well as the interactions of earth's major systems. How does the Pacific ocean, the Sierra Nevada Mountains, and prevailing winds make death valley one of the most inhospitable places on earth? Students will calculate, research, and take data to delve deep into applying concepts including humidity, phase change, latent heat, lifting, adiabatic lapse rates, and trends of temp