If you are planning to study the weather, I recommend checking out this resource from Environment Canada called Sky Watchers.
It looks like originally this program was intended for classes and students to learn about meteorology through a series of hands-on, interactive lessons and activities. While gathering data, they could report back to Environment Canada with their findings, helping to create a database of weather information. However, I can’t seem to see if the actual reporting program is still in place – as the website doesn’t seem to have a section for that at the moment. (If someone finds it – please let me know and I will update this post!)
What remains though is a very in-depth set of resources to teach about the weather. It seems as most of the learning portions were created for the grades 4 to 7 range, but are easily adaptable for younger learners and I’m sure can be dived in more detail for older students as well.
Here’s more about each of the tools you will find on the site.
SkyWatchers Guide:
This 11 chapter guide includes everything from detailed instructions on how to set up your own weather station, to forecasting the weather without computers, to the effects of UV, and more. Each chapter is broken up into more detail, including diagrams and activities that help make concepts real to students. There’s even a whole chapter full of hands-on additional activities.
Chapters include:
You can choose to download and print each chapter, or you can read straight from the website. Navigation is easy to follow and everything is laid out for you.
Tour the Weather Offices
There are 4 mini-tours of what it’s like inside:
- a weather station
- a lightning detection network
- a satellite communications centre
- Weatheradio Canada
These are really photos with clickable “find” sections that send you to a more in-depth learning page about each features.
Teacher’s Corner
This section is jam-packed full of tools for any teacher.
One of the main features is a downloadable lesson plan for grades 4 to 6 that focuses on 6 different weather learning stations through hands-on activities and exploration. It includes printable handouts and student instructions.
The additional resources option here offers printables such as charting tools, a student workbook, “posters” (which seem more like explanatory sheets to me), and a guide to clouds. There are also links to fun word puzzles and games, and science crafts – like how to make a tornado in a bottle.
There’s also a link to the archived teacher’s guide for Project Atmosphere, a K-12 learning program that also focuses on weather and meteorlogy through 14 learning modules that cover:
- Hazardous Weather ( Thunderstorms – Hurricanes – Winter Storms )
- Weather Radar: Detecting Precipitation
- Weather Radar: Detecting Motion
- The Coriolis Effect
- El Niño: The Atmosphere-Ocean Connection
- Air-Sea Interaction
- Clouds
- Pressure – Highs & Lows
- Westerlies and The Jet Streams
- Sunlight and Seasons
- The Atmosphere Aloft
- Water Vapour and The Water Cycle
- Weather Satellites
- Acid Rain
Weather Glossary
Lastly, there’s a dictionary of weather related terms for a quick reference while you are learning. This is super handy to have all in one place – especially to help understand terms that are unique to meterology.
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