This is Krista from The Knitted Apple
and I am happy to be back with another blog post on Who’s Who!
We are experiencing quite interesting
weather in North Texas today. It has
been raining nonstop for hours and last night there were several tornadoes in
the area. I’m one of those weather geeks
who loves checking weather apps to see what the weather is like in different
parts of the country. Right now in North Texas
the temperature is a wet and rainy 46 degrees but in my hometown of Lincoln,
Nebraska it is a frigid 14 degrees with a “real feel” of 4 below. YIKES!
One science unit I teach every year is weather,
which is taught in several
grade levels with varying
expectations
for
each grade. Third graders in Texas are
expected to track the weather occurring in different locations at the same
time. When I completed this unit for the first time, I was happily surprised at how engaged and
excited students were. We looked at
weather in different locations in the United States and tracked the
temperature, chance of precipitation, and wind speed for each. To make it more exciting our data tracking just happened
to include a week of intense weather across the U.S.
Students noted heavy snowfall, below freezing temps, winter storm
warnings, and wind and flood advisories.
In other cities temperatures were mild and uneventful. Students recorded data on a tracking sheet
for five days, recording the weather from four cities at the same time. Once I showed them where to find the weather
data and we completed an example together, this tracking part ran itself. Immediately when Science began students would
partner up, grab a laptop or device, and go to one of the weather sites to
record data. They could not contain
their excitement as they saw the changes that occurred from one day to the
next.
Here are two student-friendly
websites I use for tracking weather data:
Choose 3-4 cities to use for
tracking weather, and be consistent in recording data at approximately the
same time every day. As students collect weather data there will be
opportunities for meaningful discussions about these differences in weather from one city to the next.This is a perfect opportunity time
to pull down that dusty map in your classroom and incorporate geography.
You can track weather at national
parks or landmarks for an interesting twist! Try tracking weather data for Yosemite National Park in California and Big
Bend National Park in Texas! Show these places to students on a map and have
them discuss why there could be such an extreme difference in weather
conditions.
If you are interested in a complete
weather unit you can use in your classroom, you can click on the image shown
below. This resource is in my TeachersPay Teachers store and includes a creative writing component in addition to weather
tracking.
I hope your students enjoy learning
about weather!
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