|
|
 |
|
|
|
The Weather and Water Course focuses on Earth’s
atmosphere, weather, and water. A good understanding of meteorology as
an earth science isn’t complete without an introduction to the physics
and chemistry that drive weather. Understanding weather is more than
reading a thermometer and recording air-pressure measurements. The
course consists of nine investigations. Students first learn about
atoms and molecules, changes of state, and heat transfer. Then they
investigate the water cycle, air masses, and fronts, winds and severe
weather.
Mr. Dudley's Science Class
Will be doing the following:
-
Investigate the properties of Earth’s atmosphere and the processes that
produce weather, including energy transfer, atmospheric pressure, and
water cycle.
-
Study principles that govern temperature, wind, humidity, precipitation, and severe weather.
-
Collect and analyze local and global weather data using instruments and reports from various media.
-
Investigate fresh water as a vital resource.
- Become familiar with and acquire vocabulary concerning these
concepts: heat, radiation, conduction, convection, density, pressure,
condensation, water cycle, drainage, and climate.
-
Exercise language, social studies, and math skills in the context of science.
- Use scientific thinking processes to conduct investigations
and build explanations: observing, communicating, comparing,
organizing, relating, and inferring.
|
|
1.
|
What
Is Weather? (2 sessions)
|
 |
•
Links to On-Line Resources
• Weather Chart Spreadsheet |
•
Naming Hurricanes
|
•
Continue with the video.
• Explore weather topics.
• Track weather reports.
• Consider weather lore.
• Contact the National Weather Service.
• Explore careers in meteorology.
• Use a spreadsheet to look at weather data. |
|
|
2.
|
Where’s
the Air? (3–4 sessions) |
|
•
Matter and Energy: Gas in a Syringe
• Atmospheric Data: Elevator to Space |
•
What’s in the Air?
• A Thin Blue Veil |
•
Weigh the air in a soccer ball.
• Draw atmosphere posters.
• Find out about atmospheric research from space.
|
|
|
3.
|
Seasons
and Sun (5 sessions) |
|
•
Cycles: Seasons
• Cycles: Pacific Coast Day Length
• Cycles: Pacific Coast Sunsets |
•
Wendy and Her Worldwide Weather Watchers
• Seasons |
•
Experiment with solar heating.
• Compare variables for cities at different latitudes
on the FOSS
CD-ROM.
• Change Earth’s tilt on the FOSS
CD-ROM.
• Investigate day lengths and sunsets on the FOSS CD-ROM. |
|
|
4.
|
Heat
Transfer (5 sessions) |
|
•
Matter and Energy: Thermometer
• Matter and Energy: Molecules in Solids, Liquids, and
Gases
• Matter and Energy: Heat and Energy
• Video Resources: Conduction through Metals |
•
Thermometer: A Device to Measure Temperature
• Heating the Atmosphere
|
• Test conduction through other materials.
• Investigate heat capacity on the FOSS CD-ROM.
|
|
|
5.
|
Convection
(5 sessions) |
|
•
Matter and Energy: Heat and Energy
• Video Resources: Convection Chamber |
•
Density
• Convection |
• “Launch” solar balloons.
• Practice calculating density.
|
|
6.
|
Water
in the Air (8 sessions)
|
 |
Students
explore the forms that water takes in the atmosphere. They investigate
how water gets in the air and how it condenses out of air. |
•
Water changes from gas to liquid by condensation.
• Water changes from liquid to gas by evaporation of water;
requires heat from the surroundings.
|
•
Infer that water vapor is part of the air by observing condensation
on surfaces.
• Determine dew point by observing at what temperature
condensation occurs.
• Predict cloud formation from dew point and temperature
data. |
|
|
7.
|
The
Water Planet (4 sessions) |
|
Students
identify the elements of the water cycle and the distribution
of water over Earth. Through a game and a multimedia simulation,
they follow the path a water molecule might take as it travels
in the water cycle. |
•
Most of Earth’s water is in the oceans as salt water.
• Earth’s fresh water is found in many locations,
including in the atmosphere, lakes, rivers, groundwater, and
glaciers.
• A water molecule might follow many different paths as
it travels in the water cycle. |
•
Engage in simulations to follow the movement of a molecule of
water through the water cycle.
• Explain with words and drawings how evaporation, condensation,
precipitation, and other processes produce many variations of
the water cycle. |
|
|
8.
|
Air
Pressure and Wind (8 sessions) |
|
Students
investigate the relationship between changing air pressure and
wind. They assemble and explore a pressure indicator and learn
about barometers. Using knowledge developed in previous investigations,
they come up with models of wind. They build an anemometer to
measure local wind and use pressure maps to make weather predictions. |
•
Pressure exerted on a gas reduces its volume and increases its
density.
• Differential heating of Earth’s surface by the
Sun can create high- and low- pressure areas.
• Wind is a movement of air from an area of high pressure
to an area of low pressure.
• Local winds, called sea breezes, land breezes, mountain
breezes, and valley breezes, blow in predictable ways determined
by local differential heating.
• Wind speed is measured with an instrument called an
anemometer.
• Air pressure is represented on a map by contour lines
called isobars. |
•
Apply pressure to a system and observe the compression of gas.
• Build an anemometer and use it to gather data.
• Interpret a pressure map.
• Describe the relationship between changing air pressure
and wind.
• Explain how differential heating of Earth by the Sun
creates local winds. |
|
|
9.
|
Weather
and Climate (6 sessions) |
|
Students
revisit severe weather and consider it in relation to air masses
and fronts. Climate is introduced and climate regions are discussed.
Students revisit the water-cycle multimedia simulation with
the global-warming variation, in which Earth’s average
temperature has increased 2–5°C. They analyze the
results. |
•
Air masses are large bodies of air that are uniform in temperature
and humidity.
• A front is a boundary that separates two air masses.
• Weather conditions usually change as a front passes
by.
• Climate is the average weather over a long period of
time in a region. |
•
Model and explain what happens when two air masses of different
densities meet.
• Explain how a global temperature increase could affect
the water cycle and Earth’s climate. |
| |
|
|
|
 |
|
|
|
