Weather Consultant Lesson: Lesson Plan

Weather Consultant
Lesson Plan

  Overview
  About this lesson
  Objectives
  Procedure
  Grading Suggestions
  Answer Key (Requires Teachers' Password)

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Overview:

Grade Levels: 8 - 12
Time Requirements: 1.0-2.5 hours computer time, 3-6 hours class time. Can be easily modified by having students skip some of the questions.
Student Prerequisites: Ability to perform basic tasks on a computer, ability to read and understand a graph.
Topics Covered: Climate, research using a computer, writing, geography.

Brief Description: An interactive lesson that lets students research climate questions. Students will take the role of a "weather consultant," answering questions for imaginary companies. To find the answers, students will connect with a government climate database.

About this lesson:

This lesson lets students apply real meteorological data to everyday problems, much as a certified weather consultant would do for a living. Weather consultants use climate data everyday to answer these and many more questions about the weather in particular areas.

Students will interact directly with a computer database from the National Climate Data Center (NCDC) in Asheville, North Carolina. The nation's climate data, all that has and will be recorded in the future, is stored at the NCDC. Scientists, consultants, and folks like you and me call upon the NCDC to find out more about the past and present weather that we have or can be expected to experience in a given location. It is an indispensable government agency that we should all know about.

Lesson Objectives:

Introduce students to meteorology by having them answer practical questions.
Utilize students decision making skills and writing skills.
Help students understand the variety of weather and the variability of weather that exists within the United States.
Let students use the Internet for research using a real on-line database.
Help students understand the wide variety of job opportunities that exist in the field of meteorology.

Procedure:

The lesson is made up of three groups of questions:

Multiple Choice, six questions
Short Answer, two questions
Research Questions, three questions

These questions challenge students to find answers from a real database. The questions are designed to be independent, so that you can assign as many or as few as you like.

The research questions will take more time, since students can choose from any location in the United States. These questions are more advanced and may need more guidance from you.

The final reseach question asks students to post their answer to a message board/forum. Students will need to know the student user name/password combination to access the forum.

All the questions would be good for group work, but these last three questions would be especially good for teams of students.

Grading Suggestions:

For the multiple choice and short answer questions, students should be able to locate the correct answers.
In the research questions, students should support their choices with climate facts.

The answer key is located here.

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Climate lesson created by Meteorologist Mike O'Lenick