Graphing Daily Weather

• Students use the local weather section of the newspaper to look up the high and low temperatures for each day. They record their data and create a line graph and bar graph to represent each variant and make double line graphs and double bar graphs to show compare highs and lows, using different colors to represent the low versus high temperatures. Students label their graphs and use pre-taught knowledge of data analysis math concepts, referring to math textbooks and notes for assistance. Students extend the activity by choosing a city within the United States that exhibits opposite weather patterns from their own city. For example, students creating this project in Syracuse, New York during the winter could choose a city such as Miami, Florida to exemplify opposing climates and weather. Students record the weather of both cities and create a double bar graph and double line graph to show their findings. Students should create a key for each graph and can write questions for others students to answer using the weather graphs.
  
  

Natural Disaster Projects

• Teachers split students into cooperative learning groups of four. Teachers place index cards labeled with the various natural disasters such as flood, tornado, volcano, tsunami and earthquake. One representative from each group picks an index card, indicating the topic for their natural disaster project. Teachers can provide students with an outline of questions to look up using the Internet, encyclopedias or books for an inquiry project. Question examples include: "How do tsunamis occur?" "What causes earthquakes?" and "What states do most tornadoes happen in?" Students work together to take notes and to formulate an essay of a teacher-determined number of paragraphs to share with the class. Students can add illustrations, pictures and facts about natural disasters to poster board for a display.
  
  

Cloud Charts

• Students can study the various types of clouds and create a chart. Kids label the chart column headings with the names of each cloud and the rows with cloud-specific headings such as "height of clouds," "cloud color," "cloud group," "vertical growth of cloud," "cloud observation" and "cloud picture." Students research and fill in the information for each cloud of study, using photos or illustrations to represent what each cloud looks like. Students can present the cloud chart with a report.
  
  

Climate Comparisons

• Students choose two to four different locations on Earth such as the Mohave Desert and the Amazon rainforest in various parts of the world. Kids conduct research on weather variations such as climate, weather, seasons, annual temperatures, biomes and ecosystems. Students implement Venn diagrams to compare and contrast two places.