Week 1: April 6-10

Learning Goal: Observing the Weather and Creating Graphs

I can represent data in a table and a bar graph to describe weather conditions.

Estimated Time for The Week:

60-75 Minutes

Type of Lesson:

Weather Conditions

Materials:

• Electronic device with Internet
• Pencil
• Paper
• Access to the weekly forecast
• Access to daily temperature

Learn & Practice:

For the Google Slides to click-through the below directions, click here!

• Watch and interact with this ebook! Investigating Weather and Climate
• Discuss how meteorologists use graphs to describe weather conditions
• Create your own table and bar graph!
  • Grab a pencil and paper to follow the steps in the slides to create a table and a bar graph
  • Get information for the predicted weather to fill in the top row of your table
  • Each day, observe the weather outside (sunny, windy, cloudy, rainy) and draw it in your table!
  • Each day determine the temperature and fill in your bar graph.
• Follow up questions
  • Weather Conditions Table: Compare and contrast the weather observed against the predicted weather.
    • Were the predictions correct?
    • Were they incorrect?
    • What was the difference between predicted and observed weather?
  • Temperature Bar Graph:
    • Is there an observable pattern to your graph?
    • Based on your graph, can you predict what the temperature will be two days later? Three days later? One week later?

Learning Goals:

I can use a nonstandard unit of measurement to see how far paper airplanes can fly.

Estimated Time for The Week:

20-30 minutes

Type of Lesson:

Hands-on

Materials:

• Three different types of paper (newspaper, printer paper, and junk mail)
• Non-standard measurement tool (examples include crayon, marker, pencil, paper clip, hand, feet, etc.)

Learn & Practice:

Students will use the scientific method to construct three different airplanes and use a nonstandard unit of measurement (for example: crayons) to measure the distance traveled by each plane. Students can determine which paper worked best!

1. Question: Which airplane will fly the farthest and why?
2. Research: Check out the basic dart design link below or use another design to construct your airplane. Basic Dart design
3. Hypothesis (idea or explanation that you then test through study and experimentation): I think ______ paper will make my airplane fly the furthest.
4. Experiment: Construct your three different airplanes and fly each of them.
5. Collect Data: Use a nonstandard unit of measurement to measure the distance. (Nonstandard could be using your feet from where you started to where the plane landed). Record your data using a t-chart, one side showing which paper you used and the other side showing the distance it flew.
6. Analysis: Compare your types of paper and how far each airplane flew. Which paper worked best?
7. Conclusion: Explain why you think which airplane flew the furthest!