Using
a variety of weather websites and other multimedia resources, students in grades 3-5
are divided into teams and for one month explore the causes of weather patterns for a
particular city they choose. After
collecting their data, the students construct a multimedia presentation of
their findings, and the teams merge their findings to show
weather patterns around the world.
This assignment can begin with an outside speaker, a local weather person from
radio, TV, or a weather club. The
teacher then organizes the class into teams by continents. Each team member has a job assignment
that rotates weekly (weather reporter, multimedia gatherer, chart producer,
or journal recorder). The teams
use websites to find and chart each day’s temperatures, wind speed, and amount
of precipitation to produce weekly graphs. The teams also find weather
maps, photos, or movies that describe the weather of that city during the week
and save those items. The journal recorder keeps the daily record of
activities and communicates by e-mail with some person or school class in the city.
During
the project, the teacher helps the teams chart their findings and track the
weather from one city to the next. After four weeks of data collection, teams construct a multimedia presentation or
Web pages that include their
findings on weather patterns for the city and effects of the weather. All of the data and multimedia information
they collected can be incorporated. The
class then constructs a final multimedia project that tracks the weather
patterns to all of the cities studied.
(Activities include numerous science standards indicated by grade levels.)
