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Wind and Weather
Climactic conditions in each season are not just
the result of the tilt of the Earth's axis. In this workshop we will
examine the effect of light on our weather. We will follow the path
of light as it enters our atmosphere, and is absorbed, reflected, and
radiated as heat by the land and by the water.
We will visit a fifth grade classroom as
they explore these phenomena. And we will examine a weather map to
discover the significance of high and low pressure.
Learning Objectives
Participants will be able to:
- Draw diagrams and generate examples that explain how sunlight
provides the energy that drives weather on Earth.
- Draw diagrams and verbally explain the high and low pressures
as one of the two major components driving wind on Earth.
- Draw diagrams and verbally explain how the Coriolis Effect deflects
wind into the swirling patterns seen in satellite images.
Standards
National Science Education Standards
K-4 Standards: http://bob.nap.edu/html/nses/html/6c.html#csck4
- The sun provides the light and heat necessary to maintain the temperature
of the earth.
Content Standards: K-4: Earth and Space Science: Objects
in the Sky
- The surface of the earth changes. Some changes are due to
slow processes, such as erosion and weathering, and some changes
are due to rapid processes, such as landslides, volcanic eruptions,
and earthquakes.
Content Standards: K-4: Earth and Space Science: Changes in the
Earth and Sky
- Weather changes from day to day and over the seasons.
Content Standards: K-4: Earth and Space Science: Changes in the
Earth and Sky
5-8 Standards: http://bob.nap.edu/html/nses/html/6d.html#csc58
- The solid earth is layered with a lithosphere; hot, convecting
mantle; and dense, metallic core.
Content Standards: 5-8: Earth and Space Science: Structure of the
Earth System
- Water, which covers the majority of the earth's surface,
circulates through the crust, oceans, and atmosphere in what is known
as the
"water cycle." Water evaporates from the earth's surface,
rises and cools as it moves to higher elevations, condenses as rain
or snow, and falls to the surface where it collects in lakes, oceans,
soil, and in rocks underground.
Content Standards: 5-8: Earth and Space Science: Structure of
the Earth System
- Water is a solvent. As it passes through the
water cycle it dissolves minerals and gases and carries them to the
oceans.
Content Standards: 5-8: Earth and Space Science: Structure of
the Earth System
- Clouds, formed by the condensation of water
vapor, affect weather and climate.
Content Standards: 5-8: Earth and Space Science: Structure of
the Earth System
- Fossils provide important evidence of how life
and environmental conditions have changed.
Content Standards: 5-8:
Earth and Space Science: Earth's History
- The sun is
the major source of energy for phenomena on the earth's surface,
such as growth of plants, winds, ocean currents, and the water cycle.
Seasons result from variations in the amount of the sunÕs energy
hitting the surface, due to the tilt of the earthÕs rotation on its
axis and the length of the day.
Content Standards: 5-8: Earth and Space Science: Earth in the
Solar System
By the end of the 2nd grade, students should know that:
- Some events in nature have a repeating pattern. The weather changes
some from day to day, but things such as temperature and rain (or
snow) tend to be high, low, or medium in the same months every year.
The Physical Setting: 4B The Earth: K-2
By the end of the 2nd grade, students should know that:
- Water can be a liquid or a solid and can go back and forth from
one form to the other. If water is turned into ice and then the ice
is allowed to melt, the amount of water is the same as it was before
freezing.
The Physical Setting: 4B The Earth: K-2
By the end of the 5th grade, students should know that:
- The earth is one of several planets that orbit the sun, and the
moon orbits around the earth. Stars are like the sun, some being smaller
and some larger, but so far away that they look like points of light.
The Physical Setting: 4B The Earth: 3-5
By the end of the 8th grade, students should know that:
- Energy cannot be created or destroyed, but only changed from one
form into another. Most of what goes on in the universeÑfrom exploding
stars and biological growth to the operation of machines and the motion
of peopleÑinvolves some form of energy being transformed into another.
The Physical Setting: 4E Energy Transformations: 6-8