Lesson Plans

Weather: A Journey in Nonfiction
In this ReadWriteThink lesson from NCTE, primary students use nonfiction text, in both print and digital format, to formulate questions and acquire answers on the subject of weather. They classify their questions into topic areas and then search nonfiction texts to answer the question. Combining question with answer, students construct sentences that are then combined with others in their topic group to form a "report" (paragraph length). The group then creates an illustration to reflect the topic and publishes it in the chosen format (print or digital).
Subject: Reading
GradeLevels: K-2

What’s the Weather Like Today?
How do meteorologists predict the weather? In this lesson plan, students will play the role of a meteorologist by constructing an anemometer that measures wind speed and forecasting weather in the near future.
Subject: Science
Grade Level: 3

Cloudy Weather
What can clouds tell us about the weather? In this activity, students learn about the different types of clouds and the weather associated with them
Subject: Science
Grade Level: 3

Stormy Weather  
Why is accurate weather forecasting important? In this lesson plan, students research a specific weather phenomenon and present their findings to the class in the form of a PowerPoint presentation
Subject: Language Arts and Science,
Grade Levels: 4 and 5

Exploring Weather Conditions Through Painting
In this ARTSEDGE lesson, students learn about how weather influences culture, daily life, and mood by examining paintings depicting different types of weather. Students demonstrate their understanding by painting a picture depicting a particular weather condition.
Subjects: Social Studies, Art
Grade Levels: 4- 7

Investigating the Climate System: Weather
helps students learn how to find, interpret, and describe weather data. Students learn also about drought, flooding, wind and dust storms, hurricanes, and lightning, as well as the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) satellite -- the information it provides and why that information is important. From NASA
Subject: Earth Science
Grade Levels: 5-8

MATHLINE - Weather: Temperature Measurement
Students use temperature information from three cities to learn about mean and median, metric conversion, and box plots
Subjects: Math
Grade Levels: 5-9

More Snow  Than Nagano?
In this PBS Cyberschool Challenge, students will learn the basics of weather terminology, becoming experts in weather forecasting. Students will read maps and collect data. After organizing these data into charts and spreadsheets, they will use their new knowledge to forecast the weather for five different cities worldwide and predict the possibility of snowfall in each of these cities.
Subject: Science
Grade Levels: 6 and 7

The Ocean and Weather: El Niño and La Niña
In this lesson, from Xpeditions, students explore the weather phenomena El Niño and La Niña. They learn about when and where these weather changes occur and about the effects they have on everything in their wake.
Subjects: Geography Earth Science, Social Studies, English
Grade Levels: 6-8

West Nile Weather
In this Science Update, from Science NetLinks, you'll hear how hot summers can mean a higher risk for West Nile virus epidemics from an atmospheric scientist at the Illinois State Water Survey. Science Updates are audio interviews with scientists and are accompanied by a set of questions as well as links to related Science NetLinks lessons and other related resources.
Subjects: Science, Health
Grade Levels: 6-12

NOVA - What's Up With The Weather?
Not much ice skating last year? Really hot this summer? Everyone's talking about the weather, yet not everyone seems to agree that real climate change is under way. How can something as simple as daily temperatures be so hard to interpret? Try your hand at analyzing some temperature readings and see if you can spot any trends.
Subjects: Science and Math (statistics)
Grade Levels: 6-12

Weather and Agriculture
In this Xpeditions lesson, students research, discuss, and write reports on the relationship between climate and agriculture. They pretend that they've just purchased farms in specific parts of the United States and investigate that region's weather and climate in order to maximize the chances that their farms succeed.
Subjects: Geography, Science
Grade Levels: 9-12

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Instructional Television

Weather Smart
#1-8 Air Tuesday, December 11 from 3:30-5:30 am
#9&10 Air Wednesday, December 12 from 5-5:30 am

Weather Smart is a Unit of Study comprised of ten weather programs designed for grades 4-8. Each program teaches weather principles at an age-appropriate level and is supported by quizzes, puzzles, exercises, coloring pages, Internet references, and hands-on experiments to make the weather come alive to young students. The series is an entire "course" in the wonders of weather, while each program can stand alone in teaching the various facets of meteorology.

Reading Rainbow - #805 Snowy Day: Stories and Poems

This feature book contains a collection of stories and poems with snow as a common theme.

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Websites:

Weather Wiz Kids
This site, designed by a TV meteorologist in Indiana good for upper elementary, but quality of information is appropriate for older students as well.
Many good explanations of weather phenomenon: tornadoes, hurricanes, winter storms, wildfires, also weather jokes, flashcards, simple games, experiments, career information, photos, art and a way to submit kids’ art  and more and other links.

EarthStorm
This is an educational outreach site from the Oklahoma Climatological Survey. It has lesson plans on various weather related topics (click materials tab). In addition to a variety of other interesting things, the site hosts students’ descriptions of projects they did using the up to date Oklahoma climate data which is provided on the site. The site contains material for all grade levels.

Vortex: Unraveling the Secrets-- Educational site of National Severe Storms Laboratory
This is a relatively sophisticated “storybook” which describes tornadoes and includes interviews and real data. This site also has a severe weather primer, weather lessons and weather coloring books downloadable with Adobe Acrobat.

For Kids Only: Earth Science Enterprise from NASA
This site explains how NASA studies various earth features from space, and then explains what they have found about a variety of phenomena—El Nino, continental drift, the ozone hole among many others. There is information about careers in meteorology as well as other NASA related careers. This site is geared to middle grade students.

National Weather Service Playtime for Kids
This site has links to a number of National Weather Service pages and other web sites that provide information and activities about a variety of weather phenomena.

Franklin’s Forecast—weather resources from the Franklin Institute.
Good simple explanations of weather phenomena for middle grade students. Links to other web sites, directions on how to build your own weather station and more.

Blustery Beginnings is a different section of the same website with information about wind

Weather World from Penn State University
A number of actual weather forecasts explaining various weather terms and concepts are the center of this site, but there are also links to a wide array of other weather related information.

Science with NOAA research.
NOAA and the University of South Alabama have collaborated to create this site for middle school students and teachers which has online resources for research and investigation. The topics include storms, atmosphere, and oceans.

Exhibits Collection--Weather
This website from Annenberg Media’s Learner.org has excellent information about weather related topics, links for more information and access to videos.

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Tech Tour

Investigating Earth Changes
This TechTour facilitates the study of Earth science topics including Plate Tectonics, volcanoes, earthquakes, weathering and erosion and rocks and minerals. Students will be considering what impact these elements of nature have on the lives of humans, particularly in Maryland. Students will create team PowerPoint presentations and individual letters to persuade their classmates that this phenomenon has an impact on people’s lives
Subjects: Language Arts, Science
Grade Levels: 5-8

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