We began our weather unit learning about clouds.
We learned about 4 types of clouds:
stratus, cumulus, cirrus, and cumulonimbus.
We learned that cirrus clouds are very high in the sky and cumulus and stratus are lower. Stratus clouds can even be so low that we can walk through them: fog!
We learned that cumulonimbus clouds begin as cumulus clouds low in the sky but they they stack higher and higher until they become high, gray thunderstorm clouds!
Mrs Hoy's oldest son is a pilot so she showed us a video of him flying through fog!
The students created the different types of clouds to add to our landform mural in the hallway!
The next thing to address was how are clouds formed!?
The water cycle, of course!
We learned a song to help us remember! (complete with hand motions and everything!)
(to the tune of: She'll Be Comin' Round the Mountain)
Water travels in a cycle, yes it does
Water travels in a cycle, yes it does
It goes up as evaporation
Then forms clouds as condensation
Travels down as precipitation
Yes it does!
To understand how water vapor condenses when it gets cold, we used our breath on the cold windows to create clouds!
We learned that the sun was the most important part of the cycle because without it, the water couldn't be heated and turned into water vapor for evaporation! We put water in a bag and taped it on the windows to see the water cycle in action!
Once we understood how clouds are formed, we learned that once a cloud gets too full of water droplets, it falls from the cloud in the form of precipitation. There are 4 forms of precipitation: rain, snow, sleet, and hail. For snow, it must be 32 degrees or below. Actually, we learned from a meteorologist that all precipitation leaves the cloud as snow--since it is so cold that high in the sky. The temperature of the air decides in which form precipitation will hit the ground.Very interesting!
The students created precipitation to add to our hallway mural as well!
Here is the finished weather (and landform) mural!
We also learned about different types of extreme weather. These include: blizzards, floods, tornadoes, and hurricanes. We learned what causes each of these and practiced how to stay safe during them.
We practiced a tornado drill by going to our safe location on the first floor.
We wanted to really experience becoming meteorologists so the second graders created weather tools and set up a weather station on the balcony. They taught the class about each one and have been doing a weather report each day!
A wind vane tells us the direction the wind is going.
A rain gauge helps us measure precipitation.
The thermometer tells us the temperature.
A barometer measures air pressure.
And the anemometer measures the speed of the wind.
Check out how much rain we got after a big storm the day after we set up our weather station!
To get an insider's perspective on weather, we invited Mike Joyce, a meteorologist from Channel 2 news, to come talk to us. He showed us how they use radar to help them predict the weather.
He was very impressed by our weather station!
To finish us our unit, we had the privilege of touring the WHIO Channel 7 news station with meteorologist Kirstie Zontini!
We got to see where the reporters do their research and write their articles and we even got to see how the anchormen/women use a teleprompter located directly below the camera so they seem like they are looking at the camera and don't have to look down at a script!
Then, we went into where they actually film the news!
Miss Kirstie showed us how they use radar towers to see the weather and how they use a touch screen pen and different graphics on camera to best tell the viewers the story.
We even got to meet two other meteorologists at the station while we were there! On the left side of the photo below, you can see Brett Collar and McCall Vrydaghs!
The highlight, of course, was getting to use the green screen. They even got to see how it worked by putting on a green hat that made the kids appear headless!
Whoa!
Thanks so much to WHIO Channel 7 news for giving us such a wonderful and memorable experience!
