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A Hands-on Approach to Teaching
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A HANDS-ON APPROACH TO TEACHING WEATHER AND CLIMATE IN AN
EIGHTH GRADE CLASSROOM

By

Susan Jennifer Tate

A THESIS
Submitted to
Michigan State University
in partial fulﬁllment of the requirements
for the degree of
MASTERS OF SCIENCE
College of Natural Science

2003

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Abstract

This study details the design and implementation of a ﬁve-week unit on weather
and climate taught to eighth grade students. The goal of this unit was to increase student
interest and performance by creating student-centered lessons, eliminating reliance on the
textbook, incorporating meaningful hands-on activities and engaging demonstrations,
providing opportunities for cooperative learning, integrating math and technology into
the lessons, and checking student understanding with embedded assessment. These
strategies were designed to improve instruction of topics covering the atmosphere and air,
heat transfer and temperature controls, wind formation and types, moisture in the air, air
masses and fronts, and climate. Data for this study were collected ﬁ'om four instruments
of assessment: a pre-test, a post-test, activity extension questions and a writing/publishing
project. Quantitative data from these tools, along with qualitative data collected ﬁom a

post-unit survey indicate that the goals of the unit were successfully met.

 

 

 

 

 

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Acknowledgements

Dr. Merle Heidemann, for her expertise, guidance and tireless efforts for the
advancement of science education. She has pushed me to be a better science teacher by
her example.

Dr. Ken Nadler, for his energy and dedication to the program, and his genuine interest in
my research project.

Margaret Iding, Linda Wolcott and Becky Murthum, for their daily efforts to keep things
running smoothly in the department. Each of you has helped me out in countless ways,
and I am honored to consider you my friends.

Angela Clark-Pohlod, April Holman, Kari Simon-Pieters, Cynthia Stultz-Eichbauer, and
Kathy White, for their friendship that I treasure dearly. You have all motivated me to be
the best that I can be in the classroom.

My husband Brad, for being my biggest cheerleader and for understanding when I had to
cancel plans in order to work on my thesis project and paper. I love you.

My parents Jerry and Sheryl, for their love and constant support. Thank you for always
believing in me.

And last but not least, my students, for their curiosity and enthusiasm for life. You have

taught me to roll with the punches and not take life too seriously—although it never hurts
to have a contingency plan.

iii

Table of Contents

I. Introduction .......................................................................... 1
A. Scientiﬁc Background .......................................................... 5
B. Demographics .................................................................. 10
II. Implementation ..................................................................... 12
III. Evaluation
A. Quantitative Analysis .......................................................... 25
B. Qualitative Analysis ............................................................ 35
IV. Discussion .......................................................................... 39
V. References ........................................................................... 44
Appendix A—Assessment
I. Pre-test ................................................................ 47
II. Post-test ............................................................... 49
Appendix B—Lecture Notes
1. Atmosphere .......................................................... 55
11. Air Pressure ......................................................... 56
III. Heat Transfer ....................................................... 57
IV. Temperature Controls .............................................. 58
V. Wind Formation and Types ....................................... 60
VI. Moisture in the Air ................................................. 62
VII. Air Masses and Fronts ............................................. 64
VIII. Climate ............................................................. 65
Appendix C—Demonstrations
1. Attack of the Killer Peep® ......................................... 66
II. Bell Jar Boil .......................................................... 67
III. Aquarium Convection .............................................. 68
IV. Reason for the Seasons ............................................. 69
V. Heat Capacity of Land vs. Water .................................. 70
VI. Candle Extinguisher ................................................ 71
VII. Ping-Pong Anemometer ........................................... 72

iv

Appendix D—Student Activities

I. Balloon Behavior .................................................... 73
II. Flashlight Insolation ................................................ 75
III. Insolation Investigation ............................................. 76
IV. Greenhouse Investigation .......................................... 79
V. Building an Anemometer ........................................... 82
VI. Cloud Base Height ................................. _ ................. 84
VII. Cloud Base Height Extension Questions ........................ 86
VIII. Weather Map Photo ................................................ 87
IX. Weather Travel Brochure .......................................... 88
X. Brochure Rubric ..................................................... 90
XI. Brochure Location Lottery ........................................ 91
XH. Paleoclimates and Pollen .......................................... 92
XIII. Study Guide ......................................................... 99
XIV. Review Crossword ................................................ 101
XV. Post-Unit Survey ................................................... 104
Appendix E-I. Parental Consent Letter ............................................. 105

 

 

 

 

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I. Introduction

According to the American Association for the Advancement of Science, science in
the classroom is something to be performed, not simply studied (cited in Knezek, 2000).
This statement was the central reason that I selected my 8th grade science unit on weather
and climate for improvement. When working this unit, my students were exposed to
lessons that were textbook centered, ineffective, and lacking in opportunities for them to
be active, inquisitive learners. The goal of this improved unit was to increase student
interest and performance by implementing lessons that were learner-focused, eliminating
reliance on the textbook, developing hands-on activities and engaging demonstrations,
and by allowing students more opportunities to work in cooperative learning groups. In
addition, I was seeking to integrate math and technology into my lessons, and to
determine the students’ understanding throughout the unit by embedding assessment
within the lessons.

In a teacher-centered classroom, students often sit passively while the teacher actively
works at providing them with knowledge, whereas a learner-focused classroom is
characterized by students who are mentally engaged and actively participating in the act
of learning (Thomason, 1998). Teachers then become facilitators, whose role it is to
assist the students in understanding the material and it application to the world (Ritchie,
2000). One of the duties of the teacher is to promote the idea that knowledge is not a
ﬁxed possession, rather it is a tool that students need for constructing viewpoints in
alternate situations (Anfara, 2000). In order to be an effective educator, the teacher must
use real-world examples that pertain to the lives of their students, and encourage them to

apply what they have learned to other scenarios. To do this, teachers may need to guide

the students by illustrating and clarifying these interconnected relationships (Ritchie,
2000).

One way that a teacher can develop a more learner-centered approach in their
classroom is by eliminating reliance on the textbook. The curriculum can be more
ﬂexible when teachers use alternate sources for planning lessons (Ediger, 2001).
Students, especially those in the middle grades, are better served by this ﬂexibility.
According to Paul Hickman of the Center for the Enhancement of Science and
Mathematics Education at Northeastern University in Boston, “young children can learn
facts ﬁ'om text but ﬁnd it hard to learn ideas from them” (Raloff, 2001). Unfortunately
for many students, lesson reliance on a textbook often leads to boredom or ﬁ'ustration,
and some students lose their curiosity and enthusiasm for science.

As teachers move away from the textbook, they can replace the old text-driven lessons
with new hands-on activities, which put the learner in a more active role (Knezek, 2000).
Instead of the teacher telling the students the information, the students are put in the
position that they must investigate and ﬁnd the answers empirically (Raloﬁ‘, 2001). This
helps the student construct their own world-view (Dalton, 1997), and develop better
abstract thinking skills (in The Futurist, 1999). Hands-on activities provide opportunities
for meaningful learning, since middle school students learn best from these methods.
Putting students in small groups and allowing them to experiment within a given set of
parameters feeds their need for social interaction with their peers (Raloff, 2001 ), which
beneﬁts all students. In fact, students who are characterized as poorly motivated often
report that they learn best when they can work on hands-on activities and projects that

allow them to make decisions (Muir, 2001). Studies show that these types of activities

also beneﬁt students with learning disabilities (Dalton, 1997). Since these students often
have language difﬁculties or problems with written expression, the fact that hands-on
activities target multiple modalities helps them to better learn and retain information.
Because hands-on activities beneﬁt all types of children in a classroom, educators will
almost certainly have the full support of their building principals (Nabors, 1999). With
administrative and parental support, and promising research that points to its
effectiveness, it is easy to see why a teacher would make the transition away from
textbook lessons toward hands-on, student-centered activities.

In addition to developing lessons that center around hands-on activities, teachers can
improve their instructions by encouraging students to work in cooperative learning
groups. Many of the activities utilized in this unit plan gave the students opportunities to
work with their peers. Cooperative group discussion provides an opportunity for science
students to simply explore the topic at hand (Anfara, 2000). Furthermore, when students
have the chance to develop concepts by communicating in turns with the other members
of their group, they are also developing a problem-solving framework for future use
(Dalton, 1997). Cooperative learning is a valuable tool because students “must learn to
include and communicate with one another” (Walsh, 2000). This puts the students into
what she refers to as the “oral discovery space”, in which the students develop their own
thinking by talking about it with others. Both students and teachers can beneﬁt ﬁom the
development of this problem-solving framework through cooperative learning.

Another hallmark of exemplary middle school instruction is curriculum integration.
The importance of this was cited in the Benchmarks for Science Literacy by the

American Association for the Advancement of Science when they praised the beneﬁts of

the integration of science with mathematics and technology (Cawley, 2002). The
National Middle School Association extends that praise by observing that curriculum that
is integrated helps students “connect school experiences to their daily lives outside the
school, and. . .encourages them to reﬂect on the totality of their experiences” (Anfara,
2000). Integration was the goal of this unit when lessons were implemented that included
graphing, calculating, drawing, and computer research and design. Asking students to
ﬁnd the connections between these different activity components not only helps them to
reﬂect on the material, but it also challenges them to become ﬁrlly engaged in an activity
(Walsh, 2000). When students are engaged, active, curious learners, they become open to
all of the possibilities that the curriculum offers.

When this unit plan was designed, opportunities to check for student understanding as
they work, embedded assessment, were incorporated into the lessons. Types of
embedded assessment include using questions at the beginning of an activity to assess
prior knowledge, having whole class discussions to guide student understanding, and
asking the students to use drawing to diagram or model the main ideas of the activity
(Treagust, 2003). An example of embedded assessment taken ﬁ'om this unit would be
when the students were asked to predict the outcome of convective layering within an
aquarium by drawing what they expected to see. The goal of embedded assessment is to
ﬁnd out where the students are in their understanding so that instructional modiﬁcations
can be made to elaborate, illustrate, and clarify student misconceptions. In addition to the
informal tools of assessment that were mentioned above, a more formal assessment tool
that a teacher can utilize is a scoring rubric. A rubric is a device that is designed by the

teacher to guide the students in an activity, and to evaluate their ﬁnished work. In

 

 

 

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essence, the rubric eliminates anxiety and confusion by informing the student of the
criteria for the assignment (Bednarski, 2003). Whether a teacher incorporates formal
assessment strategies, such as rubrics, or informal embedded assessment into their
activities, students ultimately beneﬁt ﬁ'om this aspect of instruction.

Based on the current pedagogical research previously mentioned, this unit was
redesigned to be learner-centered. Opportunities for meaningful, hands-on activities,
cooperative learning, curriculum integration and embedded assessment were incorporated
to maximize student success. This was designed to beneﬁt the students, and to also assist

the teacher out of the rut of teaching textbook-driven lessons.

A. Scientiﬁc Background: Weather and Climate

Weather is something that surrounds each and every one of us every single day. It is
something that inﬂuences a person’s ﬁshing trips, commutes, weekend plans, possibly
their livelihood, and sometimes even their wedding. Weather is also something that by
the time most people reach adulthood, they think they know more than the meteorologist
on television. Weather is all of these things, and in a scientiﬁc sense, it is also a dynamic
system that resides in our atmosphere, driven by four key elements: air density/pressure,
heat, wind and moisture. Trends in this dynamic system over time are referred to as
climate.

Earth’s atmosphere, a thin layer of gases that surrounds the planet, is composed
primarily of nitrogen and oxygen. The bulk of these gases, which most people refer to
simply as air, reside in the layer closest to Earth, the troposphere. This layer is also

referred to as the layer of weather. The troposphere is followed by the remaining layers:

the stratosphere, the mesosphere and the thermosphere. All of the air in the atmosphere
is constantly pushing down on Earth’s surface, and this is referred to as air pressure. Air
pressure is related to the density of the air; if air is more dense, it will have higher air
pressure. The three main factors that determine density of the air are temperature,
elevation and the amount of water vapor in the air. In an open container, like our
atmosphere, as temperature rises, density decreases due to the fact that the molecules in
the air spread out as they collide with one another. Likewise, density will decrease as
elevation, or altitude, increases. This is because there are fewer air molecules as you rise
through the troposphere. Finally, the amount of water vapor in the air affects density due
to the fact that a molecule of water has less mass than a molecule of oxygen or nitrogen.
So when water vapor is added to a parcel of air, it displaces an equal number of
molecules out of the parcel, thereby reducing the overall mass and the density.

The primary factor that drives the system of weather is thermal energy that the Earth
receives from the Sun. This thermal energy is transferred through the vacuum of space
by a process known as radiation. Once this solar radiation heats the surface of the Earth,
some of that thermal energy is conducted directly to the air above it. Another method of
heat transfer, convection, distributes the thermal energy throughout Earth’s atmosphere.
Convection is also one of the ways that heat is transferred through water. The amount of
radiation that reaches the Earth at any particular location is called insolation (i_ncoming
solar radiatm). Insolation is affected most by latitude and the Earth’s tilt on its axis,
although there are daily ﬂuctuations in insolation as well. The temperature of a particular
location is affected by other factors besides insolation. Due to heat capacity differences

in land as compared to water, coastal locations tend to have fewer temperature extremes

than inland locations. Another factor that can affect the temperature of coastal locations
is the temperature of a nearby ocean current. Locations along the east coast of the United
States are warmed slightly by the Gulf Stream current, which is a warm water current
originating near the equator. Temperatures can also be affected by altitude, cloud cover
and surface albedo, or reﬂection. In terms of climate, scientists are most concerned about
the effect that increasing levels of carbon dioxide will have on Earth’s temperatures.

This feared trend, known as global warming, is inﬂuenced by the greenhouse effect of
our atmosphere. Since solar radiation has enough energy to penetrate Earth’s
atmosphere, it is able to reach and heat the Earth’s surface. Terrestrial radiation, which is
energy that is re-radiated by the Earth, lacks the necessary energy to be transmitted
through the atmosphere back into space. The process by which this energy is trapped
within our atmosphere is known as the greenhouse effect.

The next component of weather, wind, is closely related to air pressure and heat. In
fact, wind is caused by differences in air pressure due to unequal heating of different
locations on Earth. Some winds are transient, shitting daily due to localized heat
changes. These winds are referred to as local winds, and they include winds associated
with high and low-pressure systems, sea and land breezes, and special types such as a
monsoon or Chinook. Other wind patterns are established by large convection cells that
develop from rising air at the equator and sixty degrees latitude, and sinking air at thirty
degrees latitude and the poles. Instead of blowing due north or south, these global wind
belts, including the trade winds, prevailing westerlies and the polar easterlies, are curved

slightly by the Coriolis effect, which is caused by Earth’s rotation on its axis.

 

 

 

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The last component of weather, water, can be present in Earth’s atmosphere in gas,
liquid or solid states. Water vapor is the term for gaseous water, and the amount of it in
the air can be expressed in one of two ways. The relative humidity value indicates as a
percentage the amount of water vapor in the air compared to the amount the air could
hold at that temperature. This value will vary throughout the day as the air temperature
rises and falls. The other value is referred to as the dew point temperature. This is the
temperature to which the air must decrease in order for the air to become saturated, which
means that the water vapor would start to condense into liquid water such as dew or fog,
or solid water such as ﬁost. Clouds will also form when a rising parcel of air cools to the
dew point temperature. The three primary types are large puffy cumulus clouds, smooth
gray stratus clouds and wispy cirrus clouds. When cloud droplets start to join together,
they form larger drops of liquid water that can no longer remain suspended in the cloud.
These droplets then fall to the ground as precipitation which, depending on the state of
matter when it reaches the ground, can be classiﬁed as rain, sleet, hail or snow. There are
some climate factors that will inﬂuence the amount of precipitation that an area receives.
Locations on the windward side of a mountain tend to have heavy precipitation because
the air rising up the side of the mountain cools to the point of saturation and then loses
the moisture it carried in the form of precipitation. By the time that the air goes over the
summit to the leeward side it is very dry, so when the air sinks and warms as it goes
down the leeward face it will actually be evaporating moisture from the ground, thus
creating what is known as a rain-shadow desert. Another climate factor that can affect
the amount of precipitation that an area receives is neamess to a major body of water.

Coastal locations that experience a prevailing wind that blows from across the water tend

to get heavy precipitation, since the wind will pick up moisture as it moves across the
water and then lose it as the air changes temperature over land.

Weather occurs when the parameters change between two or more different air
masses—large bodies of air that have a uniform temperature and moisture content.
Continental air masses form over land and tend to be very dry, whereas maritime air
masses carry a lot of moisture since they form over water. In terms of temperature,
tropical air masses are warmer due to their equatorial origin, while polar air masses are
much cooler due to their high-latitude formation. When these air masses meet, the
boundary is referred to as a front, which is named according to the air mass that is on the
move. In other words, a cold front occurs when a cold air mass pushes underneath a
warm air mass. This violent uplift can produce thunderstorms and occasionally
tornadoes. A warm front, on the other hand, forms when a warm air mass slides over the
top of a cold air mass. Instead of thunderstorms, this type of front usually produces rain
showers. When there is no dominant air mass, the ﬁ'ont is known as stationary because
there is no boundary movement. The fourth type of front that can occur is an occluded
front, which forms when a cold front overtakes a warm front. This usually happens with
a mature low-pressure system that has tracked over much of the United States.

As stated earlier, climate is the general conditions of temperature and precipitation for
an area over many years. In terms of temperature, the Earth is divided into three main
climate zones: the tropical zone, the temperate zone and the polar zone. These zones are
delineated by isotherms, which produce temperature boundaries. Scientists are always
seeking to learn more about past climates in order to make better predictions about where

the climates of the planet are heading in the future. Since there is reliable climate data for

only the last hundred years or so, scientists must rely on other methods for determining
the past climate of an area. Some of these methods include taking sediment cores from
old lake beds and identifying trapped pollen, taking ice cores from glaciers or ice caps
and analyzing the trapped gases, and taking cores from trees and interpreting the ring
pattern as an indicator of the growing season.

As scientists learn more about weather and climate, they will be better able to
establish prediction models for systems such as the greenhouse effect and violent storm
formation. Forecasts will become increasingly more accurate, and industries that depend
on the weather, such as agriculture and tourism, will be able to anticipate and plan for
catastrophic weather events. Society, including the armchair meteorologists, will beneﬁt

greatly from this knowledge.

B. Demographics

Whitehall District Schools is located in the city of Whitehall—a small municipality in
Muskegon County on the shores of White Lake and Lake Michigan. Residents of this
district represent a diversity of ethnic and socioeconomic backgrounds. The spectrum
ranges ﬁom those who can afford to own lake frontage to those who live in the
government-subsidized housing project east of town. People in this community have
shown a tendency towards tremendous support for their schools, most recently passing a
bond request for a twenty-nine million dollar facilities improvement project that will
include a new high school. Local businesses and industry have forged powerful
partnerships with the school that have offered students the opportunity to apply what they

learn in the classroom to the real world.

10

Whitehall Junior High School has suffered in recent years from a slight identity crisis.
Seeking to be a true middle school, WJHS has implemented wonderful programs such as
middle school teaming, and administrators would like to have the building house grades
six through eight. Currently, the building houses grades seven through nine, although the
nine grade classes are administered by the high school which is situated next to the junior
high building. During the 2002-2003 school year there were one hundred sixty-four
eighth graders and one hundred seventy-ﬁve seventh graders, for a total junior high
enrollment of three hundred thirty-nine students (K-12 enrollment of 2,200). Of the
students in eighth grade, there were seventy-eight females and eighty-six males, with a
racial proﬁle of 88.4% Caucasian, 1.8% Native American, 7.3% African-American, 1.2%

Asian, and 1.2% Hispanic.

11

11. Implementation

As stated in the introduction, the goals of this unit were to increase student interest
and performance by implementing lessons that were learner-focused, eliminating reliance
on the textbook, developing hands-on activities and engaging demonstrations, and by
allowing students more opportunities to work in cooperative learning groups. The
lessons, activities and demonstrations were developed during the course of research that
occurred over a six-week period during the summer of 2002. I started by developing an
overview of the unit, and then breaking the main components down into lesson topics.
Appropriate activities and demonstrations were then incorporated that best ﬁt the goals of
the unit.

The initial tirneline established for the teaching of this unit was approximately ﬁve
weeks. Due to time constraints, vacations and one all-day ﬁeld trip, the unit was actually
taught over the course of twenty-two school days beginning at the end of March, and
ﬁnishing the ﬁrst of May. The ﬁrst two weeks of the unit were taught before a weeklong
spring vacation, and the remaining three weeks were taught upon the students’ return. In
order to keep this unit plan within a manageable time frame (for the students as well as
the teacher), some of the activities originally developed during summer research had to
be modiﬁed or scaled back slightly. For a complete overview of this unit, including the
progression of demonstrations, activities, labs and lecture notes, see ﬁgure 1.

The unit began with a pre-test consisting of twelve short-answer questions that best
represented the material (Appendix A-l). This assessment alone piqued the curiosity of

the students since they were not used to taking any kind of test in which their score did

12

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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I. Handoutnew 1. Discuss: Peepderno 1. Discuss: Balloon mluute classes) 1. Lab: “Insolation
textbooks 2. Activity: “Balloon Behavior 1. Notes: Heat Transfer Investigation”
2 Unit Pre-assessrnerit Behavior” 2. Laserdise: cont,
3 Notes: Atrnospha'e 3. Notes: AirPressure Atmosphere 2. Activity: “Flmhlight
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of the Killer Peep Boil” Convection”
S. Hmwlr: Read 5. Hmwlc Read 4. Notes: Heat Transfer
sec. 1-2 sec. l-l
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Investigation Controls writ, Greenhouse lnv. 2. Activity: Building “Twister”
2. Notes: Temperature 2. Activity: (graphing) an Anemometer
Controls Greenhouse 2. Read: sec. 1-3
3. Demo: Seasons Investigation 3. Notes: Local Winds
4. Demo: Heat Cu). Of 4 Demo: “Candle
Land vs. Water Extinguisher”
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1. Activity: Finish 1. Notes: Cloud 1. Activity: can. * class—Field Tap No school—Good '\ f-
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4/21 4/22 4/23 4/24 4/25
1. Discuss: Cloud Base 1. Review “Quiz” 1. Research: Weather 1. Notes: Climate 1. Activity:
Height Activity 7’s 2. Notes: Air Masses Travel Brochure 2. Activity: Paleoclimates cont,
2. Notes: Precipitation and Fronts (Computer Lab) “Paleoclimates aid 2. Research: Weather
3. Laserdisc: Clouds 3. Activity: Weather Pollen” Travel Brochure
and Precipitation Travel Brochures (Computer Lab)
4. Read: sec. [-5 (Location Lottery!)
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Most students seemed to take the assessment

seriously and gave their best effort. The pre-test was followed by approximately ten

minutes worth of lecture notes (Appendix B-I) that presented an overview of Earth’s

atmosphere. Since the students had been taught about the atmosphere in seventh grade,

the information was meant to refresh their memories about the layers and composition of

the atmosphere. I ﬁnished the ﬁrst day of the unit with a demonstration designed to catch

their attention. Titled “Attack of the Killer Peep®” (Appendix C-I), the demonstration

showed how marshmallow candy expands inside a bell jar when the air is removed with a

13

 

 

vacuum pump. Some simple inquiry questions were posed to the students in an attempt
to solicit observations and explanations. Since I did not elaborate on the function of the
bell jar and pump before the demonstration, some students did not understand that the air
was being removed. These students tended to believe that there was something inside of
the candy that was actively growing. Eventually, students correctly pieced together the
correct explanation that the candy passively expands due to a lack of air pressure.

Two additional days were devoted to the topic of air density and pressure. Since
student acquisition of this information was integral to further study on heat transfer and
wind formation, I repeatedly checked the students’ understanding during this time. An
additional demonstration (Appendix C-II) utilizing the bell jar to boil water in the
absence of heat reinforced the previous day’s demonstration with the expanding candy. I
took this idea one step further with a student activity titled “Balloon Behavior”
(Appendix D-I). In this activity, a balloon was stretched across the opening to an
ordinary twenty-ounce pop bottle. Students were told that the bottle would be alternately
placed in boiling water and an ice bath. They were asked to draw pictures and make
verbal predictions as to what would happen to the air inside the bottle/balloon assembly
under these conditions. So that the students would not have to handle boiling water, this
activity was modiﬁed so that I would perform the experiment in ﬁont of the class, with
the students encouraged to come up close to watch. This proved to be an important
activity for the class because while most of them had a pretty clear understanding of what
would happen to the balloon, many were unable to draw or verbalize what was happening
to the individual air molecules within the assembly. After spending approximately ten

minutes on lecture notes (Appendix B-II), homework for the students that night included

14

activity extension questions (Appendix D-I) that pertained to air pressure and density,
and we spent nearly half of the next day’s class discussing the activity and follow-up
questions.

The next topic covered in this unit was related to thermal energy and heat. Since this
was one of the major ideas for the unit, ﬁve days of class were devoted to this topic. The
ﬁrst demonstration planned, titled “Aquarium Convection” (Appendix C-III), proved to
be engaging. Prior to taking notes on the subject of heat transfer (Appendix B—III),
students were asked to make a drawing (prediction) and a verbal explanation as to what
would happen when water of different temperatures and colors was released into an
aquarium full of room temperature water. Eighth graders tend to get excited anytime
they are handed colored pencils and asked to draw, even for science class, and this was
no exception. The students were ﬁll] of anticipation for the demonstration itself, which
produced fantastic results. The students were impressed by the distinct layers of color
that formed in the tank. The interest generated by this demonstration carried over to the
next day’s class when the students had an opportunity to do a hands-on investigation
about insolation (incoming _sgl_ar radimcm), or the amount of heat energy that reaches a
particular location on Earth. During the “Flashlight Insolation” activity (Appendix D-II),
students were given a ﬂashlight and some graph paper, and instructed to trace the circle
of illumination produced by the ﬂashlight when held at various angles. Students then
counted the number of squares on the graph paper that were within this tracing. Students
quickly made the connection that the ﬂashlight, like the Sun, emits a constant beam of
light, so if the number of illuminated squares increased, the intensity of the light falling

on those squares must have decreased. This preliminary activity served as a springboard

15

to a laboratory investigation on insolation (Appendix D-III). The students applied their
newfound knowledge from the ﬂashlight activity to a new situation involving a heat
source (clip lamp), thermometers and wooden blocks (30°-60°-90° triangles). The
students were given rather limited instructions for this investigation, and it was
interesting to see how they problem-solved throughout the lab. Working in groups of
three, the students taped the thermometers to the wooden blocks so that when placed in
front of the heat source, one thermometer would be held at a ninety—degree angle, one at
sixty degrees, and one at thirty degrees. Lab groups then recorded the temperature
increases of the three thermometers at regular intervals. Watching the students as they
recorded data, it became apparent that many students would write down just about
anything without questioning the validity of it. Several groups in each class generated
data that did not match the expected outcome. If the students were unsure of the
expected results, I would remind them of the ﬂashlight activity that they had done the day
before. This reminder was usually enough to get the group realizing that their data was
ﬂawed. I would then prompt them to do some error analysis and brainstorm some ideas
as to why their experimental set-up was producing ﬂawed results. It was very satisfying
as a teacher to see the students apply their prior knowledge in this manner. This proved
to be a very effective investigation. However, some caution should be taken in linking
this lab to the ﬂashlight insolation activity. Some students became confused by the fact
that with the ﬂashlight activity, it was the light source that was varied in angle as it was
held over the paper, but with the lab investigation the heat lamp was immobile while the
blocks were varied in angle. Also, when asked to apply their results from the lab

investigation to places on the Earth, some students confused the angle of the block with

16

latitude. In other words, they thought the ninety-degree block corresponded to the polar
regions (ninety degrees latitude) instead of the direct rays near the equator. In the future,
some pre-laboratory explanation to eliminate this confusion would be in order.
Additional demonstrations and hands-on activities dedicated to the topic of heat
transfer and insolation included a demonstration of the reason for seasons (Appendix C-
IV), a demonstration of the heat capacity of land versus water (Appendix C-V), and a
greenhouse/albedo investigation (Appendix D-IV). The demonstrations were integrated
into the presentation of lecture notes on temperature controls (Appendix B-IV), which
effectively provided alternative instruction for those students who do not ﬁnd lecture to
be their preferred learning style. As reinforcement of the lecture material on factors that
inﬂuence the heat received at a particular location on Earth, the students had the
opportunity to do an activity in which they made models of the Earth that represented
these factors. The “Greenhouse Investigation” (Appendix D-IV) allowed the students to
speciﬁcally analyze the effects of cloud cover and surface albedo, as well as the heat
capacity of land versus water. Students worked in groups of two to construct
atmospheric chambers that modeled the greenhouse effect of Earth’s atmosphere. After
answering a few pre-investigation prediction questions, students placed these Earth
models beneath a heat lamp that represented the Sun, and took turns recording
temperature readings at regular intervals. Results were recorded in a data table and then
graphed. Most students accurately predicted that there would be less of a temperature
increase inside the models with simulated cloud cover as compared to the models without
cloud cover. The data collected from these models reinforced the previous day’s lecture

material (Appendix B-IV) during which we discussed how clouds reﬂect and scatter

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incoming solar radiation. In terms of the other variables tested, most students felt that the
model with the soil would beat up faster than the model with the water. They based this
hypothesis on the demonstration that they had witnessed during the previous class period
concerning the heat capacity of land versus water. Unfortunately, the thermometers were
measuring the temperature above the surface material not in it, so the actual results
showed no distinct temperature difference between the two. The same could be said for
the dark-colored soil versus the light-colored sand chambers. Again, students were
anticipating that the dark-colored soil chamber would show a greater temperature
increase than the sand. Instead, the sand chamber showed more of a temperature increase
due to the fact that the surface material was reﬂecting heat back up into the chamber. In
the future I would probably modify this investigation by utilizing additional
thermometers that measured the temperature slightly below the top of the surface
material. Students did enjoy this activity, and the post—investigation discussion proved to
be very effective as the class discussed how they had formulated their hypotheses, and
why those predictions were sometimes not supported by the data

By the middle of the second week of this unit, the students entered the classroom each
day ﬁlled with anticipation as to what “cool” new demonstrations and activities they
would be seeing or doing that day. Since they had just spent almost ﬁve class periods
learning about heat, it was time to shift gears to the closely related topic of wind
formation and types. In order to convince them that wind is caused by air moving from
an area of high pressure to an area of low pressure (ultimately caused by heat
discrepancies), I performed the “Candle Extinguisher” demonstration (Appendix C-VI).

Taking advantage of the reaction between baking soda and vinegar, I “pour ” carbon

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dioxide down a trough to where it would replace the air above a lit candle, thus cutting
oﬁ‘ the supply of oxygen and extinguishing the ﬂame. This demonstration is designed so
that students can visualize a process that is essentially invisible. F ollow—up discussion
was very enlightening as I helped the students construct the correct explanation that the
carbon dioxide gas was more dense and it moved toward the less dense room air above
the candle. This is equivalent to the process by which air that is cooler and more dense
moves toward an area that has warmer, less dense air. With that understanding in mind,
we moved along to some lecture notes on the different types of local and global winds
(Appendix B-V). In order to break up the time devoted to lecture, and appeal to students
with different learning styles, I also showed a brief laserdisc clip (Prentice Hall) on wind
that reinforced the material.

The primary hands-on activity developed for this section was building anemometers
from straws and small drinking cups (Appendix D-V). The straw-cup assembly was
designed to rotate around a pin that was stuck into the eraser of a pencil. The goal of this
project was for students to construct a functional weather instrument, and to use their
completed anemometer to roughly calculate wind speed. I discovered that the higher-
achieving students in my class tended to struggle with this assignment the most, while the
lower-achieving students excelled at the construction. I knew from past experience that
students who love laboratory investigations the most tend to be the students who dislike
“book work”. I did not expect to see this pattern emerge so clearly on this assignment.
Most of the “C” and “D” students worked quietly and efficiently on this project, while
most of the “A” and “B” students whined about the difﬁculty of building the device. In

the end, almost everyone successfully built their own anemometer. The students then

19

took their new anemometers outside to measure the wind speed. While the wind was
strong the day we tested, it tended to blow in gusts, which was not very useful for our
purpose. When they returned to the classroom however, the students did get to work
through a sample calculation of wind speed by converting anemometer speed in
revolutions per minute to the wind speed in kilometers per hour. I also demonstrated a
ping-pong ball anemometer with the classroom fan (Appendix C-VII). The ping-pong
ball hanging from the anemometer is displaced a certain number of angular degrees, the
number of which can be used to look up the value for wind speed on a chart. Since the
students had been working diligently for two weeks on the unit objectives, we ﬁnished
this topic (on the half-day before spring break) by watching the movie “Twister”.
Students enjoyed watching this movie with some of their newfound understanding of
weather.

After spring break, we reviewed the material that they had learned before vacation. It
was apparent that the students’ retention was signiﬁcant. In a few instances where the
students did not seem to recall key knowledge, all it took was for me to remind them of a
corresponding demonstration or hands-on activity, and they would almost immediately
remember the ideas associated with it. This deﬁnitely validated the manner in which I
was teaching this unit.

Week three of this unit took place during a short week of school, since our eighth
graders were going on an all-day ﬁeld trip Thursday and there was no school scheduled
for Good Friday. The new unit topic that we were covering was on moisture in the air
(relative humidity, dew point temperature, cloud formation and types, and precipitation)

and the major student activity that was planned was an investigation of cloud formation.

20

The “Cloud Base Height Activity” (Appendix D-VI) involved calculating the dew point
temperature of the air, and then using that information along with the air temperature to
calculate the altitude of the cloud bases. This calculation is possible due to the fact that
both dew point temperature and air temperature decrease at a constant rate as altitude
increases within the troposphere. These temperatures decrease at different rates, so when
they are graphed as separate lines, the point of intersection is the altitude of the cloud
bases. We spent a little more than two class periods working on this activity, and
students were very involved in the entire process. They enjoyed going outside and
collecting data, and most of them had little trouble producing the necessary graph. I also
included some post-activity extension questions (Appendix D-VII) that served as one of
the assessments for this unit. These questions asked the students to make predictions and
give explanations as to what changes would occur with the height of the cloud bases if
either the air temperature or water vapor in the air increased or decreased. The students
were also asked to explain the reason that the dew point temperature was used for this
activity instead of relative humidity, and to describe the conditions under which fog will
form. Even though the students were working with a partner, most of them found these
questions to be quite challenging, and the majority of one class period was devoted to
them searching for and formulating the answers. After the students had turned in this
assignment, we spent the beginning of the next day’s class period discussing the results
of this activity and the answers to the extension questions. This activity challenged them
to think, and tied together most of what we had been studying including air density and

pressure, heat, and moisture in the air.

21

After we ﬁnished the material on moisture in the air (Appendix B-VI), I became
conscious of the fact that we were in the fourth week of the unit and I still had two time-
consuming activities planned for the students. Because of this, the class only spent one
day formally discussing air masses and fronts. This included lecture notes on the
different types (Appendix B-VII), and a detailed explanation of the forecasting bulletin
board (Appendix D-VIII). Students enjoyed the large felt weather map developed as a
part of my research that was on the bulletin board, and I gave them opportunities to
update the movement of cyclones, anticyclones and fronts each day with felt symbols.
Even though we moved on to another activity, we spent a few minutes each day that
week looking at weather maps from usatoday.com, talking about frontal
development/movement and associated weather, and some students took turns predicting
weather based on this information.

The next activity that the students worked on was designed as a major assessment
piece for the unit. Since I wanted to incorporate as much technology as possible into this
unit, each student was required to make travel brochures (Appendix D-IX) for a particular
location using Microsoft Publisher®. These brochures were to address the
weather/climate of the location, which the students researched using the Internet.
Students were given a scoring rubric (Appendix D-X) to guide them on this activity. We
held a “location lottery” in which they drew their location from a pool of approximately
forty international choices (Appendix D-XI) that I had selected. A few students
complained about the location that they drew, but I instructed them that as the director of
the travel board for that location it was their job to “sell it”. The brochures were graded

based on content, appearance and promotional appeal. Most students rose to the

22

challenge and I was pleasantly surprised by the creativity and quality of the brochures
that they produced. The Publisher program, a basic desktop formatting tool, is very user-
friendly, and most of the students took right off on it with limited teacher instruction.

The last hands-on activity was one that I had spent a great deal of time working on
during summer research, “Paleoclimates and Pollen” (Appendix D-XII). The activity
was a simulation of pollen analysis from sediment cores using confetti placed in baggies
of different types of sediment (dirt, sand, aquarium gravel). The students were required
to sort out the “pollen” ﬁ'om the sediment, and then using actual pollen data ﬁ'om an old
lake-bed in Washington State, they were supposed to construct the past climate history of
the area surrounding the lake. The students really enjoyed getting their hands dirty with
the sediment samples, and as I saw with the anemometer construction, the lower-
achieving students seemed to commit to this the most. In fact, I only required that the
students sort through two of the ﬁve layers, but many kids did not want to stop sorting.
After ﬁnally calling a halt to the sorting process, the students shared their data with the
class and then ﬁnished with a series of post-activity extension questions (Appendix D-
XII). This was a very effective activity for connecting many of the things that the
students had learned throughout the ﬁve-week unit, including the climate notes covered
in lecture (Appendix B-VIII).

During the course of teaching this unit I planned a capstone activity before the unit
test. In lieu of review games that I typically use at chapters’ end, the students listened to
a presentation by guest speaker Bill Steffen, who is the meteorologist at WoodTV 8 in
Grand Rapids. I am always a little apprehensive about how the students will behave with

a guest speaker, but I need not have been worried. Due to the fact that Mr. Steffen’s

23

 

 

 

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presentation was packed with information that reiterated what they had just ﬁnished
learning, the students were a rapt audience. In addition to this guest-lecture, I gave the
students a study guide (Appendix D-XIII) and a take-home review crossword puzzle
(Appendix D-XIV) for them to prepare for the unit test.

The ﬁnal piece of this ﬁve-week plan was a comprehensive unit test (Appendix A—II)
in which the twelve post—assessment questions were embedded. The questions on the unit
test included multiple choice, completion, short answer, map questions and an essay. The
students demonstrated seriousness as they took the test that I had not seen in many of
them before, and I attribute that to the fact that they were more invested in this unit
because of the hands-on activities in which they took part.

During the come of implementing this unit, data were collected from four assessment
instruments: the pre-test, the post-test, the “Cloud Base Height” extension questions, and
the weather travel brochures. A total of ninety-six students, out of a possible one
hundred three, returned their consent forms (Appendix E-I) in order to be eligible for this
study. Data were collected for all study participants on the pre- and post-assessments.
The data from the remaining assessments were analyzed from six students who had been
selected by their seventh grade teachers as being high-, middle- or low-achieving. In
addition, a student opinion survey (Appendix D-XV), which served as a qualitative

assessment of the unit, was completed by all participants.

24

III. Evaluation
A. Quantitative Analysis

Data for this unit were collected from four assessment instruments: the pre-test, the
post-test, the Cloud Base Height Activity extension questions, and the weather brochure.
The pre- and post-assessments were designed to objectively evaluate student
understanding of this material before and after I taught the unit. The other two
assessments were selected based on the length of the assignment, and the fact that they
were hands-on activities of different nature. One activity involved outdoor data
collection, and the other activity involved Internet research and computer design. A
detailed analysis of these four unit assessments is provided below.

The pre-test (Appendix A-I) was designed to assess the prior knowledge of my
students about each of the unit subtopics. There were a total of twelve questions on this
assessment: two questions about the atmosphere and air pressure, two questions about
heat, two questions about wind, two questions about moisture in the air, two questions
about air masses and fronts, and two questions about climate. These same questions were
embedded in the ﬁnal unit test, which served as the post-assessment (Appendix A-II) for
this project. Data were collected from a total of ninety-six students who participated in
this study.

A student response analysis was completed for the twelve questions of interest on both
assessments (Table 1 and Figures 2,3,4). Of all the students who took the pre-test,
roughly one-third correctly identiﬁed the troposphere as the layer of the atmosphere in

which Earth’s weather takes place (Q.1, Figure 2). Since this was the only question

25

Table 1. Student Response Analysis of Pre- and Post-Assesments

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Item # and Description Pre-test Post-test

(# correct) (# correct)
1. Which layer of the atmosphere is the “weather” layer? 34 92
2. What happens to the density of air as it is heated? 29 78
3. What are the three methods of heat transfer? ...conduction 4 59
...convection 2 64
. . . ...radiation 0 46
4. Why is AZ warmer than Ml? ............... latitude (equator) 66 70
........................ direct rays 5 l4
5. What causes wind? 16 52
6. In whichlobal wind belt do we live? 0 45
7. What are clouds made out of? ........................... water 13 51
.................. dust particles 3 52
8. Under what conditions does fog form? I4 45
9. Characteristics of an air mass that is ............. continental? 8 77
............... tropical? 59 85
10. What weather. ..as a cold front is passing over? 2 42
11. In which climate zone do we live? 4 63
12. What is the most abundant greenhouse gas? 19 74

 

 

* Total number of students tested = 96

on the pre-test that was written as a multiple-choice item, it would be expected that one-
quarter of the respondents would answer this question correctly by default. Many of the
students who answered this question incorrectly on the pre-test chose “thermosphere” as
the correct answer. Since the students had learned about the atmosphere in seventh

grade, I imagine that students simply confused the two terms that both started with the

26

letter “t”. I kept the format of the question the same on the post-test, and this time ninety-
two students answered this question correctly. Since they heard the word “troposphere”
repeatedly throughout this unit, it is not surprising that such a high number of them did
well on this item. Question number two, which was from a related topic, asked the

students about the density of air as it is heated (0.2, Figure 2). Twenty-nine pre-test

 

 

I Pre-test
Post-test

 

 

 

0.1 0.2 0.3a 0.31! Q.3c
Figure 2
Students correctly stated that the density would decrease, and the number correct rose to
seventy-eight students on the post-test. This can be attributed to the fact that we spent
most of one class period performing the “Balloon Behavior Activity” (Appendix D-I),
which directly relates to this question. Several students listed this activity as one that
helped them learn the most during this unit.

The next two questions on the pre-test covered the topic of thermal energy and heat.
Question number three asked the students to identify the three methods of heat transfer.
On the pre-test, there were four students who correctly identiﬁed conduction (Q.3a,
Figure 2), two students who mentioned convection (Q.3b, Figure 2), and zero students
who included radiation (Q.3c, Figure 2). These numbers rose to ﬁfty-nine, sixty-four and

forty-six respectively, on the post-test. I attribute the higher post-test response for

27

convection to the popularity of the “Aquarium Convection” demonstration (Appendix C-
III). Nearly all post-unit survey respondents mentioned this as one of their favorite
demonstrations of the unit. I expected better results on the post-test for this question, but
this was the only essay question on the unit test, and twelve students did not even attempt
an answer. The other assessment question related to heat (Q.4a-b, Figure 3), dealt with

Figure 3

 

 

 

I Pro-test
l Post-test

 

 

 

0.4a 0.“) 0.5 0.6 0.7a 0.7!)

insolation. The question speciﬁcally asked the students to give the reason that Arizona
experiences warmer year-round temperatures than Michigan. Upon analysis, I also split
student responses on this question into two parts. On the pre-test, sixty-six students
correctly noted that Arizona is closer to the equator than Michigan. Five of these
students also noted that locations closer to the equator receive more direct rays from the
Sun. I was disappointed that these numbers only rose to seventy and fourteen
respectively.

Questions number ﬁve and six concerned wind formation and global wind belts.
Sixteen pre-test students could identify the factor that causes the formation of wind (Q.5,
Figure 3). This number pleasantly surprised me, because this is not something that the
students had learned in science class in recent years. The number of correct responses on

this item rose to ﬁfty-two on the post-test, which was similar to the results for the next

28

question (Q.6, Figure 3), which asked the students to identify the global wind belt in
which we live. F orty—ﬁve students correctly identiﬁed “the prevailing westerlies” as the
answer on the post-test, where as none of them responded correctly to this item on the
pre-test.

The next section of the pre-test dealt with moisture in the air. I anticipated that the
students would not do well on these questions since most people hold misconceptions
about this topic. Since many people tend to think that clouds are made out of water
vapor, I was not surprised that on the pre-test only thirteen students knew that clouds
were made out of liquid water (Q.7a, Figure 3). Additionally, three students correctly
added that this liquid water condensed on dust particles in the air (Q.7b, Figure 3). On
the same vein, question number eight asked the students to describe the conditions under
which fog forms. Fourteen pre-test students correctly stated that humid air directly above
the ground must be cooled to the dew point temperature (Q.8, Figure 4). These questions
were then addressed in the “Cloud Base Height Activity” (Appendix D-VI), in which
students used the dew point temperature and air temperature to calculate the altitude of
the cloud bases. A signiﬁcant amount of time was spent discussing the conditions under
which clouds form, and the students were asked to extend this information to the subject
of fog formation. After teaching the unit, approximately half the class answered these
questions correctly.

Air masses and fronts were the topics of the following two questions on the pre-test:
question number nine asked for the moisture (Q.9a, Figure 4) and temperature (Q.9b,
Figure 4) characteristics of a continental tropical air mass, and question number ten

solicited information on the expected weather as a cold front passed over. The student

29

 

 

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responses did not indicate that they had much prior knowledge in these areas, since only
eight students knew that a continental air mass is dry, and only two students expected
thunderstorms beneath a cold front. Interestingly enough, ﬁfty-nine students correctly
identiﬁed a topical air mass as being warm, but I think that is because the students made
an educated guess based on the word “tropical”. On the post-test the number of correct
answers rose to seventy-seven (Q.9a, Figure 4), eighty-ﬁve (Q.9b, Figure 4), and forty-
two (Q.10, Figure 4). Most of the students who answered question number eight
incorrectly were either too general with their answer (many students simple wrote that it
would “rain”), or they made the mistake of describing the weather m the cold ﬁont had
passed over. Perhaps, some of this confusion could have been avoided with better
wording on the question. The activities that directly targeted this group of questions were

the weather map bulletin board and the weather brochure activity. Most students reported

I Pre-test
B Post-test

 

0.8 0.9a 0.9b 0.10 0.11 0.12

Figure 4
that they found these activities to be helpful, but due to time constraints they also felt
rushed on the brochure assignment. Additional weather map forecasting time might also

improve scores in this area.

30

The last section of the pre-and post-assessments included questions about climate
zones and greenhouse gases. Sixty-three post-test students correctly identiﬁed the
climate zone in which we live, compared with only four students on the pre-test (Q.l 1,
Figure 4). This question was also targeted by the weather map bulletin board (Appendix
D-VIII) and the weather brochure activity (Appendix D-IX). Post-test students also had a
good understanding about the greenhouse effect, since seventy-four of them correctly
identiﬁed carbon dioxide as the leading greenhouse gas (Q. 12, Figure 4). This was an
improvement over the nineteen who responded correctly to this question on the pre-test.
This increase can be attributed to the hands-on activity in which the students investigated
the greenhouse effect and albedo (Appendix D-IV).

In addition to the comparison of the pre- and post-assessments, there were two other
assessments that indicated student acquisition of the material. These assessments were
analyzed for a total of six students in my classes: two students who were identiﬁed as
high-achieving (l-STH-A and 7-STH-B), two students identiﬁed as middle-achieving (6-
STM-A and l-STM-B), and two students characterized as low-achieving (l-STL-A and
3-STL-B) by their seventh grade teachers. The third letter in the identiﬁcation code
refers to whether they were identiﬁed as high-, middle- or low achieving. The ﬁrst
assessment that was analyzed was the page of extension questions that followed the
“Cloud Base Height Activity” (Appendix DVD). The ﬁrst question on this assignment
asked the students why the dew point temperature value was used on the graphing
assignment instead of the value for relative humidity. I was hoping that the students
would acknowledge that relative humidity changes throughout the day, while the dew

point temperature remains the same (assuming a new air mass does not move in during

31

the day). Unfortunately, none of the six students that were selected addressed this
question correctly. Student l-STH-A deﬁned the term relative humidity, while most of
the others simply stated that we were using the dew point temperature to ﬁnd the height
of the cloud bases. In other words, they did not seem to understand that the question was
asking why the dew point temperature was the correct value to use. The student who
came the closest to addressing the question correctly was 3-STL-B, who noted that a
percentage (relative humidity) would not be easy to use for this activity. The second
question on this assignment asked the students to predict which type of day (colder or
warmer) would generate lower cloud base height. They were then asked to explain their
prediction. Four of the six students correctly identiﬁed that the cloud bases would
typically be lower on a colder day. Three of these four (l-STH-A, 6-STM-A, and l-STL-
A) accurately attributed this to the fact that colder air cannot hold as much water vapor,
so clouds would form as condensation takes place. The fourth student (1 -STM-B)
incorrectly hypothesized that it usually rains on cold days, and rain clouds are lower. The
two students (7-STH-B and 3-STL-B) who answered the ﬁrst part of the question
incorrectly, mistakenly associated warm days with higher humidity, and thus, they
believed that the clouds would form due to the increase in humidity. When asked what
effect an increase in water vapor (humidity) would have on the dew point temperature, all
six students correctly noted that it would raise this value. Five of the six students also
correctly answered that an increase in humidity would lower the altitude of the cloud
bases. The only student to answer this part incorrectly was student 6-STM-A, who did
not give an explanation for this prediction. Both high-achieving students correctly

explained that when the humidity is high, the air is closer to being saturated, which favors

32

cloud formation at lower altitudes. The last question on this assessment addressed the
formation of fog. Four of the six students answered this question correctly. Student 1-
STH-A noted “due to high humidity and the temperature reaching the dew point, a low
cloud forms over the land.” Student 3-STL-B explained “the formation of fog comes
from air above the ground cooling rapidly that night”, while students 6-STM-A and l-
STL-A both noted the cold temperatures and water vapor needed for the formation of fog.
These students gave different responses that were equally correct. In terms of acquisition
of the information, these six students did fairly well, and seemed to reﬂect the responses
of the entire class.

The ﬁnal assessment to be analyzed was the student-designed weather brochure
(Appendix D-IX). This assignment was graded according to three criteria: content,
appearance and promotional appeal (see rubric, Appendix D—X). Each of these grading
areas was worth ten points, and then the individual scores were averaged. For the content
portion of the grade, a score of ten indicated that the student described the temperature
and precipitation of the location in detail, and also included the factors that inﬂuenced
these climate characteristics. In terms of appearance, a score of ten acknowledged that
the student liberally used color, graphics and/or pictures, their choice of font size and
style enhanced the look of the brochure, and the text was complete and correctly placed.
A score of ten points for promotional appeal was given to students who used creative
wording and/or humor to catch the reader’s attention, mentioned interesting trivia about
the location, and used pictures, graphics and captions that enhanced the text. Scores
below ten points indicate that the students neglected to do some or all of these things.

Looking at individual results, student l-STH-A, who made his brochure on Cairo, Egypt,

33

scored a ten on content and promotional appeal. He scored an eight on appearance due to
the fact that the text size and styles were inconsistent and did not enhance the look of the
brochure. This brought his overall grade down to a nine and three-tenths. The other
high-achieving student, 7-STH-B, scored tens on all components of her brochure on
Godthab, Greenland for a perfect score. Another great brochure was made by student 6-
STM-A about Quito, Ecuador. Scoring tens on appearance and promotional appeal, her
overall score was lowered slightly by an eight on content for failing to provide the factors
that inﬂuenced the climate of Ecuador. The other middle-achieving student, l-STM-B,
had an overall score of eight and seven-tenths on his brochure about Kabul, Afghanistan.
This was the same overall score that the two low-achieving students received on their
brochures. Student l-STL-A scored eights on content and appearance, and a ten on
promotional appeal for his brochure on the Falkland Islands, while student 3-STL-B
scored a ten on content and eights on appearance and promotional appeal for her brochure
on Madagascar. The quality of the students’ work, especially the low-achieving students
in my classes, was beyond what I expected on this assignment. It is especially
remarkable considering that many of the students felt that they needed more time on this
assignment, and that I gave minimal instruction on how to use the Microsoft Publisher
program.

The four assessments for this unit: the pre-test, the post-test, the “Cloud Base Height
Activity” extension questions, and the weather brochure, proved to be very effective in
gauging the students’ acquisition of the material. Students who were middle- and low-
achieving, as well as those who typically excel in school, demonstrated that they

considered the assignments enjoyable and relevant enough to turn in quality work.

34

B. Qualitative Analysis

In terms of assessing this unit in a qualitative manner, the new demonstrations and
hands-on activities proved to be highly effective. Student response was overwhelmingly
positive. The demonstrations that I had planned were met with enthusiasm and curiosity.
The students would routinely enter my classroom each day and inquire about the agenda
for the hour. Perhaps most rewarding, students in my afternoon classes would often
come in to my room already aware of the planned activities because they had been
discussing them with their peers outside of class.

The interest and excitement that the students felt can best be represented by some of
the student quotes ﬁ'om the post-unit survey (Appendix D—XIV). In response to the
demonstration “Aquarium Convection” (Appendix C-III) that showed the distinct
temperature layers that form in a tank of water, a student in my sixth hour class remarked,
“that was tight, Mrs. Tate!” (Tight being new slang for awesome.) In a post-unit survey,
nearly all of my students mentioned this as their favorite demonstration, because it gave
them a “visual understanding” of the process of convection. Students also acknowledged
that the demonstrations with the bell jar (Appendix C-1 and II) and the “Candle
Extinguisher” (Appendix C-VI) were “cool”, and they had “no idea what was going to
happen.” One of my students in ﬁrst hour picked the candle demonstration as his favorite
because it was “like something out of a magic show”, and another student in that class
told me that she liked that demo so much she went home and showed it to her younger
brother. One student also mentioned that she learned a lot from the demonstration of the
seasons because she “learned how the seasons changed and [she] never really understood

before.”

35

In terms of hands-on activities, the students preferred projects during which they got
to go outside. The “Cloud Base Height Activity” (Appendix DVD for example proved
to be quite popular for this reason. Interestingly enough, many students found the indoor
portion of this activity (especially the extension questions) to be too difﬁcult, but as a
teacher I was pleased when a girl in my seventh hour echoed what her classmates were
saying when she observed that she “didn’t like it. It was challenging; it made me think.”
I informed her that that was what I was hoping to do. In addition to going outside, I
found that my students loved getting their hands dirty. When they were working on the
“Paleoclimates and Pollen Activity” (Appendix D-XII), their favorite part was sifting
through the dirt to pick out the confetti. Because they had so much fun looking for the
“pollen” and sorting it into types, they took more ownership for their data when it was
time to share their results and analyze them. A student in my sixth hour class admitted
that she like this activity the best because “it was just something different.”

Students also responded favorably to the classroom weather map (Appendix D-VIII).
Upon entering my classroom the ﬁrst day of the unit, typically ﬁve or six kids per class
hour would remark upon how “cool” or “pretty” it looked. One student noted that “it
looks just like the one the weather man uses!” There were a handful of students each
hour that volunteered to update the map with the current day’s placement of the cyclones,
anticyclones and fronts, and make a prediction of the next day’s weather.

Other activities that the students reported that they learned ﬁ'om were “Building an
Anemometer” (Appendix D-V) and making the weather brochure (Appendix D-IX).
Referring to the former, a student in seventh hour was excited that “it actually worked

and it was neat to know I actually made it.” Another student echoed her thoughts, and

36

 

 

 

 

 

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added that it was also cool to “get a free pencil," although there were some students who
reported that this was their least favorite activity because “it was hard to make.” The
students also had some mixed reactions about making the weather brochure. Many
students agreed with a girl in sixth hour that it was nice “being creative with science, and
it was a fun learning activity.” Most negative reactions had to do with the fact that many
students felt that they were “pressed for time”, and that they “could have done a better
job” if they had more time. Since this seemed to be a very effective activity, I would plan
on giving the students the time that they asked for in the future. It was rewarding to hear
from some students that this was the activity that they learned the most from in this unit.
Not only did they learn about the weather, but also as one boy in my seventh hour class
shared, they got to “learn about a place they never heard of.”

The students also enjoyed the times in class that they considered to be academic down
time. The movie “Twister” was shown the half-day before spring break speciﬁcally for
that reason, but it was encouraging to see that many of the kids noted the movie’s
relevance, and as one student remarked “we could see the action that we talked about in
class.” Likewise with our guest speaker, meteorologist Bill Steffen from WoodTV 8 in
Grand Rapids, many of the kids felt that this was time spent “out of class.” One
observant girl, however, noted, “I thought it was pretty neat that I could understand what
he was talking about when he said words like anemometer, or barometer, or if he was
talking about how location affects precipitation.” The majority of the students agreed
that listening to Mr. Steffen was one of the activities that they learned from and enjoyed

the most.

37

 

 

 

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In summary, the students overwhelmingly liked the hands-on activities and
demonstrations that were part of this unit plan. As a student in sixth hour class observed,
“hands-on stuff helped me understand what they were talking about in the book.” This
was echoed by a girl in seventh hour when she said, “hands on helps you learn more
because your [sic] doing it yourself and you observe more.” These student quotes

qualitatively reinforce the efficacy of these activities.

38

IV. Discussion

This unit was designed to target the academic, social and emotional needs of
middle school science students, by implementing lessons that were learner-focused,
eliminating reliance on the textbook, developing hands-on activities and engaging
demonstrations, and by allowing students more opportunities to work in cooperative
groups. Data collected during the implementation of this unit indicate that the goals of
this project were met. Academically, the students demonstrated their acquisition of the
material on the post-test and supplemental assessments. The students met social goals by
working well in cooperative learning groups and by taking part in class discussions and
data sharing. Finally, the students indicated that their emotional needs were met by
coming to class each day full of excitement and inquiry, and by demonstrating that when
presented with material in a hands-on format, students previously deﬁned as low- and
middle-achieving are capable of producing top-quality work.

The teaching of this unit was successful for many reasons. First of all, the
textbook as a primary source was eliminated. I only assigned textbook excerpts as
supplemental reading for those students who like seeing the material in an additional
format. Another reason this unit was successful is because I came to class each day well
prepared and full of excitement for the activity at hand. I made it a point to be well
organized and enthused, and I think that because of this, the students were very involved
in the discussions and willing to give me the beneﬁt of the doubt if a demonstration or
activity was not going as well as planned. The most important reason that this unit was
effective is because students of this age seem to have an innate interest in science as long

as it is presented in a fun, entertaining way, and they get to be actively involved during

39

 

 

 

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the lesson. Even lecture notes, which most of my students found dull before, became
exciting with the addition of numerous engaging demonstrations. Designing this unit
provided a great opportunity for me to assess my teaching and the manner in which
middle school students learn best, which is through a variety of teaching methods and
hands-on activities.

In hopes of engaging my students, and catching their attention, I implemented
several demonstrations during the teaching of this unit. The four that were the most
popular were “Aquarium Convection”, “Candle Extinguisher”, and the two bell jar
demonstrations, one with the marshmallow peep® candy and the other with boiling
water; I think my students thought I was a magician when these were presented. All of
these demonstrations elicited interesting and thoughtful comments during discussion. A
different demonstrations that I plan on modifying for next year is the explanation for the
seasons. This demo seemed to take too long, and without active student involvement,
many students lost their focus and missed the point of the exercise. For the same reason,
I would also either modify or eliminate the demonstration involving the heat capacity of
land vs. water. This was not very effective as a demonstration in front of the class, and I
may adapt it so that it becomes part of a hands-on activity, in order for the students to
take more ownership for the data and the explanation.

While there were not any hands-on activities that I would eliminate in the future,
some of them could be modiﬁed slightly to make them more effective, and to reduce
student confusion or frustration. The “Flashlight Insolation” activity seemed to be a good
precursor to the “Insolation Investigation”. However, there was some confusion about

the angle of insolation and the application of that to the Earth. In the future, I would

40

probably have the students hold the graph paper up to the wall and then shine the
ﬂashlight on it, so that the orientation of the light for both activities is the same. I would
also spend more time in class discussing the topic of sun angle and direct rays. There
were other activities that could have been more effective if the students had additional
time. I think that more of the students would have enjoyed building their anemometers if
they had not felt rushed. Since I did not think this activity would take the entire class
period, I used the ﬁrst ﬁfteen minutes of class for the presentation of lecture notes.
Unfortunately, this was time that the students really needed for the project, since many of
them did not ﬁnish in time to test their anemometer outside. Next time, I would start this
activity at the beginning of the hour to ensure that everyone had time to go outside to
collect data Additional time also would have helped for the weather brochure activity.
Even though I was very impressed by the quality of work shown on the brochures, many
students felt like they could have done a better job if they could have worked on it longer.
In fact, there were a couple of students who did not turn in their brochure because they
did not have time to ﬁnish it. This was deﬁnitely not the objective of the project. In the
future, I would have the students practice using the Microsoft Publisher program
throughout the year, so that they would be more comfortable, and work faster when
making their brochures.

In addition to modifying a lesson to allow for more time, one of the activities in this
unit would have been more effective if it had been taught on consecutive days. The
students spent one and a half class periods working on the Cloud Base Height activity
collecting data and graphing, and then we did not return to class to work on the extension

questions until ﬁve days later. By this time, many of the students had forgotten the key

41

ideas of the activity, which led to confusion and frustration. Many students reported in
the post-unit survey that they felt rushed on this activity. I would probably lengthen this
activity to include days of different cloud types and heights, and include more cloud
identiﬁcation and calculations. Now that I am aware of the length of time needed for this
activity, I can use better planning when implementing this in the ﬁrture.

More time and consideration during implementation would have also strengthened the
effectiveness of the weather map bulletin board. Quite a bit of thought and planning went
into the construction of this weather map during summer research. I started by making an
overhead transparency of a map of the United States, with state borders shown. This
image was then projected onto the wall, where I traced the map on a large piece of green
felt. Weather symbols and fronts were also cut out of felt. The central idea was that
these symbols could be easily moved to represent the current day’s weather map. Due to
time constraints, movement of these weather symbols became the job of a handful of
volunteers in each class. These volunteers also made some predictions about the weather.
In the future, I would like to have more activities revolve around this bulletin board that
get all of the students involved. Some ideas that come to mind include formal daily
forecasts for the student announcements, and a forecasting contest in which all of the
students make predictions about the next day’s weather based on the current weather
map. I would also like to include some type of formal student worksheet or weather log
on which the students are responsible for keeping track of daily weather formation and
movement.

Because of the success of this unit, I plan on integrating more demonstrations and

hands-on activities into the rest of my curricultun. The time spent developing and

42

planning these activities is well worth it when their efﬁcacy is considered. This unit met
the goal of increasing student interest and performance through learner-centered
instruction and lessons. The students were more focused, inquisitive learners, and as a

teacher I was ﬁlled with more enthusiasm and pride in the lessons that I teach.

43

References

Anfara, Vincent A. and Leonard Waks. “Resolving the Tension Between Academic
Rigor and Developmental Appropriateness.” Middle School Jourﬂ. Nov. 2000.

Bednarski, Marsha. “Assessing Performance Tasks.” The Science Teacher. April
2003.

Cawley, John F. and Teresa E. Foley. “Connecting Math and Science for All Students.”
T_eaching Exceptiorgl Children. March/April 2002.

Cox, John D. Weather for Dummies. IDG Books Worldwide: Foster City, California.
2000.

Dalton, Bridget, Catherine Cobb Morocco and Terrence Tivnan. “Supported Inquiry
Science: Teaching for Conceptual Change in Urban and Suburban Science
Classrooms.” Journal of Learning Disabilities. Nov./Dec. 1997.

Ediger, Marlow. “How to Generate Student Excitement in Science.” Science Activities.
Fall 2001.

Exploring Earth’s Weather. Prentice Hall: Upper Saddle River, New Jersey. 1997.

“Hands-on Learning.” The Futurist. Oct. 1999.

Knezek, Gerald, Hiromitsu Muta and Joke Voogt. “Information and Communication
Technologies in Hands-on Science: Emerging Trends Across Three Nations.”

The Journal of Computers in MathematicL and Science Teaching. 2000.

Lutgens, Frederick K. and Edward J. Tarbuck. The Atmosphere. Prentice Hall:
Engelwood Cliffs, New Jersey. 1995.

Muir, Mike. “What Engages Underachieving Middle School Students in Learning.”
Middle School Joum_al_. Nov. 2001.

Nabors, Martha L. “Principals for Hands-on Science.” Education. Summer 1999.
Raloff, Janet. “Where’s the Book?” Scien_ce News. March 2001.

Ritchie, Donn C. and Chris Volkl. “Effectiveness of Two Generative Learning Strategies
In the Science Classroom.” School Science and Mathematics. Feb. 2000.

Thomason, Julia. “Learning Focused Instruction = Achievement.” Michigan Middle
School Journal. Spring 1998.

Treagust, David F ., et a]. “Embed Assessment in Your Teaching.” Science Scope.
March 2003.

University Corporation for Atmospheric Research. “Education and Outreach.”
www.ucar.edu/ucar/

Walsh, Patt. “A Hands-on Approach to Understanding the Brain.” Educational
Leadership. Nov. 2000.

45

APPENDICES

46

Appendix A-I

Weather and Climate Name:
Pre-Assessment Hour:
8" Grade Science

Mrs. Tate

1. What layer of the atmosphere does Earth’s weather take place in? (circle)
A. Mesosphere
B. Troposphere
C. Thermosphere
D. Stratosphere

2. What happens to the density of air as it is heated?

3. What are the 3 methods of heat transfer?

4. What is the reason why year-round temperatures are warmer in Arizona than in
Michigan?

5. What causes wind?

6. What global wind belt do we live in?

47

7. What are clouds made out of?

8. Under what conditions does fog form?

9. In terms of temperature (cool/warm) and moisture content (moist/dry), what would be
the characteristics of a Continental Tropical air mass?

10. What weather would you expect as a cold front is passing over?

11. What climate zone do we live in?

12. What is the leading greenhouse gas?

48

Appendix A-II

Weather and Climate Test #
Unit Test

8" Grade Science

Mrs. Tate

Part 1— Multiple Choice (1 pt. each)

1. In which layer of the atmosphere does Earth’s weather take place?
A. Mesosphere
B. Troposphere
C. Thermosphere
D. Stratosphere

2. As elevation increases, the density of air:
increases

decreases

stays the same

doubles

P05”?

3. Air pressure is measured with a:
A. thermometer
B. anemometer
C. barometer
D. psychrometer

4. Which of the following dates is known as an equinox?
A. June 21$t
B. September 21St
C. March 21“
D. both B and C

5. On an equinox date, the sun’s direct rays fall on:
A. the equator
B. the tropic of cancer
C. the poles
D. Michigan

6. Warm air that rises over land and is replaced by cooler air from over water is:
a doldrum

a sea breeze

a land breeze

a prevailing wind

POP”?

49

7. Global wind belts are curved due to:
A. the Coriolis effect
B. the greenhouse effect
C. hurricanes
D. tall buildings

8. Large, “puffy” fair weather clouds are:
A. cirrus
B. stratus
C. cumulus
D. cumulonimbus

9. Thunderstorms and hail are usually associated with:
A. a warm front
B. a cold front
C. an occluded ﬁont
D. a stationary front

10. Lines on a weather map that connect places with equal temperature are:
jet streams

isobars

isotherms

rivers

POP”?

Part II— Completion (1 pt. each) Give the term or phrase that answers each question.

11. As air is heated, its density ?

 

12. Which hemisphere has more surface area covered with water?
13. What is the leading greenhouse gas?

14. A southwest wind blows fr_o_n; which direction?

15. Which global wind belt do we live in?

16. Wind speed is measured with a(n) ?

 

17. The scientiﬁc name for a low pressure system is a(n) ?

 

18. The heat stress index, which estimates your body’s comfort level on a summer day,
takes into account the day’s temperature and ?

 

19. The temperature at which condensation will form on outdoor surfaces (grass, trees,
etc.) is called the ? temperature.

 

50

20. The temperature of a tropical air mass is (higﬂlow).

21. The moisture content of a continental air mass is (higﬂlow).
22. Which climate zone do we live in?

23. El Nino occurs when currents shift in which ocean?

24. Which climate zone rarely has temperatures above freezing?

25. What is one method that scientists can use to investigate past climate?

Part 111— Short Answer (2 pts. each)

26. What is the reason that year-round temperatures are warmer in Arizona than in
Michigan?

27. What causes wind?
28. What are clouds made out of?
29. Under what conditions does fog form?

30. What weather would you expect as a cold front is passing over?

Part IV— Weather Map: use the information given on the class weather map to give a
daily forecast for 2 of the 3 locations. (3 pts. each) Consider the following when giving
your forecast:

temperature (cool/warm/hot)

relative humidity or dew point
precipitation (none, rain, thunderstorms)
clouds (clear/cloudy)

wind direction

barometer (rising/falling)

Hint: Choose the details that you’re most conﬁdent about. I will be looking for three
correct statements for each forecast. Incorrect statements will count against you.

51

Part V—Climate Map (1 pt. each)

27. Nome, Alaska is in which climate zone?

28. Which city, Saskatoon or Topeka, has colder yearly temperatures?
29. Atlantic City is warmed by which ocean current?

30. What is the only U_.S._ci_ty shown in the tropic zone?

31. Which gets more precipitation San Fransisco or Las Vegas?

32. Which city, Denver or Omaha, has warmer yearly temperatures?
Part VI—Essay (5 pts.)

Name the three methods of heat transfer and give an example of each that is related to
this unit.

52

Weather and Climate Name:
Unit Test—Answer Sheet

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

8“ Grade Science Test #
Mrs. Tate
Part I—Multiple Choice Part II—Completion
l. __ ll.
2. _ 12.
3. _ l3.
4. __ 14.
5. __ 15.
6. _ 16.
7. __ l7.
8. __ 18.
9. __ 19.
10.__ 20.
21.
22.
23.
24.
25.
Part III—Short answer
26.
27.
28.

 

53

29.

 

30.

 

Part IV—Weather Map

Location Forecast:

 

 

 

Location Forecast:

 

 

 

Part V—Climate Map

31. 34.

 

32. 35.

 

33. 36.

 

Part VI—Essay

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

54

Appendix B-I

Weather and Climate Unit
Topic I .' Understanding Earth is Atmosphere

Key Idea: The atmosphere is a thin layer of gases that surrounds
the Earth.

1. Composition of the atmosphere:
A. Nitrogen (~7 8%)
B. Oxygen (~21%)
C. C02, Water Vapor, trace gases (~1%)
D. Solid particles

2. Layers of the atmosphere—divided according to
temperature.
A. Troposphere—“weather layer”; temperature 1« as
altitude T.

 

B. Stratosphere—location of the jet stream. Ozone layer
causes temperature to T as altitude T.

C. Mesosphere—meteoroids burn up here; temperature
starts to drop again.

D. Thermosphere—Air extremely thin; particles
extremely hot.

55

Appendix B-II

Topic 2: Air Pressure and Density

Key Idea: Air pressure is the force of air pushing down on the
Earth’s surface.

1. At sea level, air pressure is ~14.7 lbs/inz. (Newspaper
demo)

2. Air pressure is related to the densig of air. (more dense =
more air pressure)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

more dense less dense

3. The density of air depends on three factors:
A. Temperature—in an open “container” like our
atmosphere, an T in heat causes density to i, because
of particle movement.

B. Elevation—as altitude T, the density of air d.

C. Water vapor—moist air is less dense than dry air,
because H20 is lighter than N2 or 02.

4. Air pressure is measured with a barometer.

56

Appendix B-III

Topic 3 .' Heat Transfer in the Atmosphere

Key Idea: Heat is a form of energy. The Earth receives heat
energy from the Sun.

1. Heat transfer is the movement of heat from one place to
another.

2. There are three methods of heat transfer:

A. Conduction is the direct transfer of heat from one
substance to another. Example: the warm ground
heats the air directly above it.

B. Convection is the transfer of heat within a ﬂuid (gas
or liquid). Most of the heat energy in the atmosphere
is transferred by convection currents.

Warm air 7: cold air J.

C. Radiation is the transfer of heat energy through a

vacuum. This is how the heat (and light) from the Sun
reaches the Earth.

57

Appendix B-IV

Topic 4: Temperature Controls

Key Idea: There are many factors that cause variation in
temperature from place to place. They include:

1.

2.

4.

Insolation—(i_ncoming s_olar radiM). Affected most by
latitude and Earth’s tilt (235°) on its axis. Locations in the
tr0pics receive the most direct rays of the Sun, so they are
usually the warmest.

o It is because of Earth’s tilt that we experience seasons.
«Summer Solstice (~June 215‘)—direct rays hit the
Tropic of Cancer (23.5° N)

«Fall Equinox(~Sept. 21“)—direct rays hit the
Equator.

«Winter Solstice(~Dec. 215‘)—direct rays hit the
Tropic of Capricorn (23.5° S)

«Spring Equinox(~March 215‘)—direct rays hit the
Equator.

Heating of land vs. water—Differences in heat capacity
cause land to warm up faster than water. However, for the
same reason, land will cool down faster than water.
Therefore locations away from water experience greater
temperature extremes. (Temps. are moderated or buffered
by proximity to water.)

Ocean currents—«warm ocean currents like the Gulf
Stream in the Atlantic keep coastal locations warmer.

Altitude or elevation—temperature iv as altitude T.

 

58

5.

Cloud cover and albedo—light colored surfaces and

clouds reﬂect a great deal of light, causing a decrease in
daytime temperatures. However, clouds will also trap in
heat at night causing it to be warmer than on a clear night.

Greenhouse Effect—A “blanket” of carbon dioxide and

other gases traps heat in our atmosphere. This is a good
thing, unless the level of C02 gets too high, which could
cause global warming.

59

Appendix B-V

Topic 5: Wind Formation and Types

Key Idea: Wind is caused by differences in air pressure due to
unequal heating of the Earth.

1. Local winds—are those experienced by a speciﬁc location.

A.

F.

Winds are named according to the direction from
which they blow.

A sea breeze happens during the day when warm air
over land rises and a cool breeze off the water rushes
in to take its place.

A land breeze happens at night when warm air over
water rises and cooler air over the land takes its place.

A cyclone is a low-pressure system. Winds move in a
counterclockwise direction.

A high-pressure system called an anticyclone has
clockwise winds.

Special types of local winds: monsoon, Chinook.

2. The Coriolis effect is a shift in global wind patterns due to
the rotation of the Earth.

3. Global wind belts—
A. Calm winds at the Equator (0° latitude) are called the

doldrums.

60

B. The trade winds are felt between the Equator and the
horse latitudes (30° N and S.)

C. The prevailing westerlies are strong winds
experienced between 40° and 60° latitude N and S.
This is the global wind belt in which we live.

D. The polar easterlies are very cold, weak winds
between 60° and 90° N and S.

4. Wind speed is measured with an anemometer.

5. Wind direction is measured with a wind vane.

61

Appendix B-VI

Topic 6: Moisture in the Air

Key Idea: Water can be present in our atmosphere as a gas, liquid
or solid.

1. Water vam is the gas form of water. The amount of
water vapor in the air can be expressed as:

A. Relative humidigy (%)—the amount of water vapor in
the air compared to the amount that can be held at that
temperature. ‘

B. Dew point (°)—the temperature that the air would
have to drop to become saturated.

C. These are both measured with a psychrometer.

2. The heat index is a measure of how warm the air feels due
to the humidity.

3. Clouds are not made of water vapor! They are made of
liquid water that has condensed on particles of dust in the
air (condensation nuclei).

A. Cumulus—big, puffy fair weather clouds.
Cumulonimbus clouds are large clouds associated
with thunderstorms.

B. Stratus—a smooth blanket of clouds. Usually bring
light rain.

62

C. Cirrus—wispy, high-altitude clouds. Usually found
in fair weather, but can indicate potential snowfall.

4. ﬁg—basically a cloud that forms at ground level. Fog
happens when the cold ground cools the air above it to the
dew point temperature.

5. Precipitation—the falling products of condensation in the
atmosphere.

A. Includes rain, sleet, hail and snow.
B. Climate factors that affect precipitation:

- Mountains—windward side gets heavy
precipitation. Leeward side forms a rain-shadow
desert.

o Bodies of water—coastal cities with prevailing

wind that blows ﬁom water to land get heavy
precipitation.

63

Appendix B-VII

Topic 7: Air Masses and Fronts

Key Idea: An air mass is a large body of air that has a uniform
temperature and moisture content.

1. The name given to an air mass describes its properties by
indicating where it formed.

A. In terms of moisture content, the air mass is either

B.

maritime (formed over water; moist) or continental
(formed over land; dry).

In terms of temperature, the air mass is either
tropical (formed at low-latitudes; warm) or polar
(formed at high-latitudes; cold).

2. A front forms at the boundary between two air masses.

A. Cold front—a cold air masses violently pushes under

C.

D.

a warm air mass. Weather: thunderstorms, drop in
temperature.

Warm front—a warm air mass slides over a cold air
mass. Weather: rain showers, increase in temperature.

Stationaﬂ front—two air masses meet, but there is
no movement. Weather: extended rain showers.

Occluded front—a cold front will sometimes
overtake a warm front. Weather: intermediate.

Appendix B-VIII

Topic 8: Climate
Key Idea: Climate is deﬁned as the general conditions of
temperature and precipitation for an area over a long period of
time.

1. The Earth is divided into three climate zones:

A. Tropical Zone—includes area approximately between
the tropic lines.

B. Temperate Zone—includes areas in the mid-
latitudes.

C. Polar Zone—includes areas in the high-latitudes to
the poles.

2. Since we only have reliable climate data for the last
hundred years (or so), scientists must rely on other methods
for determining the past climate (paleoclimate) of an area.
Examples include:

A. Sediment cores and palynology

B. Ice cores

C. Dendrochronology

65

Appendix G]

Weather and Climate Unit
Demo-“Attack of the Killer Peep®”

Key Idea: This demonstration allows students to see what happens when an object is no
longer subjected to the force of air pressure around it.

1.

Place a marshmallow Peep candy inside a bell jar that is hooked up to a vacuum
pump.

Ask the students to. record their “before” observations.
Turn the pump on to remove the air from the bell jar.
Release the pump valve to allow the air back inside the jar.

Ask the students to record their observations and explain what happened with the
candy in both situations.

Students should report that the Peep expanded when the air was removed from the
jar due to the fact that air was no longer pushing on the candy. The candy shrank
in size when the air was allowed back into the jar because the air pressure on the
outside of the candy increased.

66

Appendix C-II

Weather and Climate Unit
Demo—“Bell Jar Boil”

Key Idea: This demonstration allows students to see what happens when an object is no
longer subjected to the force of air pressure.

1.

Place a 250-mL beaker of water (approx. 2/3 full) inside of a bell jar that is
hooked up to a vacuum pump.

Turn the pump on to remove the air from the bell jar.

Within seconds, the water in the beaker should start to boil.

Turn the pump off and release the valve to allow the air back inside the bell jar.
Ask the students to explain what happened to the water.

Aﬁer discussion, the students should understand that when an object boils, the
dissolved gases in the liquid form bubbles and rise to the surface. This can be
accomplished by heating the liquid, and/or decreasing the air pressure on the
surface. This is why liquids boil at lower temperatures when they are at higher
elevations (less air pressure). Note—the physics of boiling may be too complex
for middle school students—keep it relatively simple.

If you feel like giving your students a surprise, remove the beaker from the bell

jar and scream dramatically as you dip your ﬁngers in the water. (Some students
will think the water is hot because it was just boiling.)

67

Appendix C-III

Weather and Climate Unit Name:
“Aquarium Convection”

8" Grade Science Hour:
Mrs. Tate

During this demonstration, water from four Styrofoam cups will be released into an
aquarium full of room temperature water. The cups will contain boiling water (red),
warm water (purple), cool water (blue) and ice water (green). In the rectangle below
(which represents the aquarium), use colored pencils to shade in the water, as you would
expect to see it after the colored water has been released.

 

 

 

 

(side view of aquarium)

1. Why did you choose the color pattern that you drew?

 

 

 

2. How is air movement in our atmosphere related to the movement of water in this
demonstration?

 

 

 

Adapted from www.ucar.edu/ucar/

68

Appendix C-IV

Weather and Climate Unit
Demo—“Reason for the Seasons”

Key Idea: Seasons are caused by the tilt of Earth on its axis, and the planets progression
in its orbit around the Sun.

1. Ask for a student volunteer to be the Sun. (I usually pick someone dressed in
bright yellow or orange.) This student stands in the middle of the room holding a
ﬂashlight or spotlight.

2. Using a globe or ball to represent the Earth, engage the students in a discussion
(What is the axis? Where is it? How many degrees is it tilted? What is it called
when Earth spins on its axis? How long does this take? What does this cause?
Etc.,)

3. Making sure that you keep the axis oriented in the same direction, “orbit” around
the room stopping at solstice and equinox points. Ask the students to identify
which season we are having in the Northern hemisphere at each point. Ask them
to estimate the number of hours of daylight and darkness that corresponds to each.

69

Appendix C-V

Weather and Climate Unit
Demo—Heat Capacity of Land vs. Water

Key Idea: Water heats up and cools down slower than land due to the higher heat
capacity of water.

1.

Take two IOOO-mL beakers and ﬁll one of them with water, and one with dirt
(approx. half ﬁrll.)

Place a thermometer inside the beaker of water so that the bulb of the
thermometer is one or two centimeters below the surface of the water. Tape the
thermometer to a ring stand or box so that it remains suspended in the water.
Repeat step 2 with the beaker of dirt.

Take an initial temperature reading.

Place a heat lamp directly over the beakers and record the temperatures at regular
intervals.

If time permits, turn off the lamp and monitor the temperature as it decreases for
the two beakers.

Discuss the results with the students.

70

Appendix C-VI

Weather and Climate Unit
Demo—“Candle Extinguisher”

Key Idea: Air is a ﬂuid. As such, it will ﬂow from an area of high density to an area of
low density.

Materials:

1 Tbsp. baking soda

‘A cup vinegar

500-mL beaker

votive candle

matches

Strip of poster board (z 12” by 3”)

1. Fold the strip of poster board “hot dog style” to form a narrow trough.
2. Light the votive.

3. Place baking soda in the beaker and add vinegar. This reaction will produce
carbon dioxide gas.

4. Quickly, “pour” the carbon dioxide gas from the beaker down the trough to the
candle. Note: Be careful not to pour actual liquid down the trough (too much
vinegar)——this will extinguish the candle also, but it’s not the point of the
demonstration!

5. Help the students make the connection that the carbon dioxide was more dense, so
it moved to replace the room air, which was less dense, above the candle. In the
demo, this movement extinguished the candle. In the atmosphere the movement
of dense air (cold) to an area that is less dense (warm) creates wind.

71

Appendix C-VII

Weather and Climate Unit
Demo—Ping-Pong Ball Anemometer

Key Idea: A simple anemometer can be made that relates the angular displacement of a
ping-pong ball on a string to the wind speed.

1. Create some sort of stand for your anemometer. If you have access to the
woodshop, pieces of 2x4 work well. In a pinch, PVC pipe or a ring stand would
do.

2. Hand a protractor upside down from the stand so that the ﬂat edge of the
protractor is on top.

3. Attach a ping-pong ball to a long piece of thread (use a needle to thread this if
possible) and hang it from the top, center of the protractor so that the string hangs

down past the 90° mark.

4. Use a fan to create wind that will displace the ping-pong ball. Have a student take
a reading from the protractor. I like to have students make estimates of the wind
speed before we use the chart to ﬁnd the correct answer.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Wind Speed Chart
Angle (°) Km/h mph
90 0.0 0.0
85 5.8 3.6
80 8.2 5.1
75 10.1 6.3
70 1 1.8 7.4
65 13.4 8.4
60 14.9 9.3
55 16.4 10.2
50 18.0 1 1.2
45 19.6 12.3
40 21.4 13.4
35 23.4 14.6
30 25.8 16.1
25 28.7 17.0
20 32.5 20.3

 

 

 

 

 

Adapted from Exploring Earth’s Weather

72

Appendix D-I

Weather and Climate Name:
Air Pressure/Density Activity Hour:
“Balloon Behavior”

8“ Grade Science

Mrs. Tate

Answer the following questions before viewing the “balloon behavior”
demonstration.

1. Draw a balloon on each bottle that represents what you expect to see. If you
could see the individual air molecules inside the apparatus, what would they look
like? Add air molecules to your drawings.

Room Temperature Boiling Water Ice Bath

2. Describe the activity that think will be happening inside each bottle apparatus:

 

 

 

 

3. After demo: What happens to air molecules when they are heated? Cooled?

 

 

73

4. What would happen to the air molecules in this demo if it were not a “closed”
system? (Explain for both hot/cold situations)

 

 

 

 

Extension Questions:

1. Why is it difﬁcult to breath at high altitudes?

 

 

 

2. Why would a southern coastal city tend to have lower air pressure than an inland
city farther north?

 

 

 

 

3. Why does the reading on a barometer rise when the air gets cooler?

 

 

 

 

74

Appendix D—II

Weather and Climate Name:
Investigating Sun Angle Hour:
8" Grade Science

Mrs. Tate

Directions: Working with a partner, you will use a pencil and graph paper to trace the
circle of illtunination produced by a ﬂashlight. The ﬂashlight will be held at various
angles to represent the sun angles experienced at different latitudes on Earth.

Procedure:
1. Hold the ﬂashlight at a 90° angle approximately 20 cm above the sheet of graph
paper.

2. With one group member holding the ﬂashlight to keep it steady, the other group
member should carefully trace the inner-most (brightest) circle of light produced
by the beam.

3. Count the number of squares within the traced circle. (If >1/2 of the square is
inside, count it.)

4. Record your results below.

5. Repeat steps #1-4 for both 60° and 30° angles.

6. Label the circles on the sheet of graph paper and attach it to this cover page.

Results:

 

Flashlight Angle # of Squares
Illuminated

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Questions:

1. What conclusion can you draw about the relationship between the ﬂashlight angle
and the intensity (strength) of the circle of illumination?

2. How does this activity relate to what occurs with the Sun and Earth?

75

Appendix D-III

Weather and Climate Names:
Investigation of Insolation

8" Grade Science

Mrs. Tate Hour:

Background Information: Insolation is deﬁned as the amount of incoming solar
radiation received by an exposed surface. Insolation depends on the angle of the Sun
above the horizon. Not only is there a daily variation in the amount of solar radiation
that a location receives, but more importantly, there is variation due to latitude and the
tilt of the Earth on its axis. In this investigation you will discover how sun angle affects
temperature on the Earth.

Problem: How does the angle of insolation affect the rate of temperature change on a

surface?
Materials: (per group of 3)
0 watch
0 3 Celsius thermometers
o incandescent lamp
0 3 wooden blocks (30°-60°-90° triangles)
o masking tape
Procedure:

1. Using masking tape, attach one thermometer to the 30° angle of one block.
Attach the second thermometer to the 60° angle of another block, and the third
thermometer to the 90° angle of the last block.

2. Place the blocks in front of the lamp as shown in Figure 1. Position the lamp so
that it is approximately 20 cm away ﬁ'om the blocks.

3. Turn on the lamp. Record in the data table the temperature of each thermometer
every minute for ﬁfteen minutes.

4. When ﬁnished recording your data, turn off the lamp.

5. Construct a line graph of your data. The data collected for each block will be a
different color line on your graph. Be sure to include a key.

76

Figure 1.

Observations:

77

Graph:

Title:

 

Analysis and Conclusion Questions:

1. Which angle caused the temperature to increase the most during the 15 minutes?
What region of the Earth receives sunlight at this angle?

2. Which angle caused the temperature to increase the least during the 15 minutes?
What region of the Earth receives sunlight at this angle?

3. What is the relationship between the size of the angle of insolation and the surface
temperature?

78

Appendix D-IV

Weather and Climate Names:
Greenhouse Investigation

8'“ Grade Science Hour:
Mrs. Tate

Background: The greenhouse effect is caused by a “blanket” of carbon dioxide and
other gases in our atmosphere that traps in heat. This can have a big impact on the
amount of warming that a location experiences. However, it is not the only factor that
controls the temperature of an area. Other factors include insolation, heat capacity of
land vs. water, altitude, ocean currents, cloud cover and surface albedo (reﬂection). In
this investigation we will look at a few of these factors and their impact on temperature.

Problem: What factors are important in determining temperature in a model atmosphere?

Materials: (per group of 2)

2-L pop bottle (clean, dry, with bottom cut off)

deli container

thermometer

white paint

250 mL of surface material (dark soil, white sand or water)
reﬂector lamp with 100 watt bulb

ring stand

Procedure:
1. You and your lab partner will be assigned one of the following experimental set-
ups:
A—Dark soil
B—Dark soil with cloud cover
C—White sand
D—White sand with cloud cover
E—Water
F—Water with cloud cover

0 The upper 1/3 of bottles ED and F will be painted white to simulate cloud
cover.

2. Fill the deli container with the assigned surface material.

3. Place the bottle top on the deli container base. Make sure the bottle is capped.

79

9.

Insert the bulb-end of the thermometer into the bottle so that the bulb is located in
the center of the chamber, above the surface material.

Place the model atmosphere approximately 20 cm beneath the reﬂector lamp.
Record the temperature of the chamber at time zero.
Answer the prediction questions.

Turn on the lamp and record the temperature in degrees Celcius every two
minutes. Continue for 20 minutes. Turn off the lamp and clean up.

Collect remaining temperature data from other groups.

10. Construct a line graph of the results.

Prediction Questions:

1.

Which experimental atmosphere will generate the highest temperature? Why?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

2. Which experimental atmosphere will generate the lowest temperature? Why?
3. How will the models with cloud cover compare to the models without?
Data Table:
Temperature (°C)
Model Time
Atmosphere 0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20
(min.)
A
B
C
D
E
F

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

80

Graph: Construct a line graph of your results. Include a title, labels for the x-axis and y-
axis, an appropriate scale, and a color key.

Title:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Conclusion Questions:

1. How did the actual results compare to your predictions?

 

 

2. How do these model atmospheres relate to the “global greenhouse” that is our
atmosphere?

 

 

81

 

Appendix D-V

Weather and Climate Name:
Building an Anemometer

8'” Grade Science Hour:
Mrs. Tate

Directions: In this activity you will build your own anemometer and use it to calculate

wind speed.

Materials:

S Dixie cups (three ounce)
2 plastic drinking straws
straight pin

pencil

scissors

paper punch
small stapler or tape

Procedure:
1. Take four of the Dixie cups. Using the paper punch, punch one hole in each cup,
approximately one centimeter below the rim.

2. Use a red marker to color the rim of one of these four cups. (This will be the
“focus” cup as your anemometer spins.)

3. Take the ﬁfth cup. Punch four equally spaced holes about 1/2 a centimeter below
the rim. Then punch a hole in the bottom of the cup. This will be the center cup
on your anemometer.

4. Take one of the four cups and push a straw through the hole. Fold the end of the
straw and staple or tape it to the side of the cup across from the hole. Repeat this
step with one other one-hole cup and straw.

5. Slide one cup-straw assembly through two of the holes in the center cup. Put a
one-hole cup on the other end of this straw. Bend the end and secure it like you
did in step #3. Make sure that the cups are facing in opposite directions!

6. Repeat step #4 with the remaining cup-straw assembly and one-hole cup.

82

7. Align the cups so that their open ends are all pointing in the same direction
(clockwise or counterclockwise) around the center cup. Push the straight pin
through the two straws where they intersect.

8. Put the eraser end of the pencil through the hole in the bottom of the center cup.
Push the pin into the eraser as far as it will go. Your anemometer is ready to go!

Calculating wind speed: Your homemade anemometer can be used to quantify wind

speed mathematically.

Step 1: Calculate the circumference of the anemometer, or the distance that the cups
are spinning. This can be found by measuring the diameter and multiplying by 1:.

Diameter = ____cm

Circumference (C) = ____cm

S__tep_2: The next step is to count the revolutions per minute of the focus cup.
RPM =

M: Use the following formula to calculate wind speed in km/hr:

RPM x C(cm) x 60min/hr x 0.00001 km/cm

 

Wind speed = km/hr

83

Appendix D-VI

Weather and Climate Unit Name(s):
Cloud Base Height Activity

8"l Grade Science

Mrs. Tate Hour:

Background information: Clouds form when temperature and moisture conditions in
our atmosphere allow water vapor to condense on dust particles. This is more likely to
happen when the air has high humidity and/or cools down. Since the temperature of the
troposphere decreases at a constant rate with height, a rising parcel of air will eventually
reach an altitude cool enough for clouds to form. The base (bottom) of the cloud
indicates this altitude.

In this activity, you will use your psychrometer to measure temperature and dew point.
You will then use this information to construct a graph with which you can interpret
cloud base height.

Pre-Activity Vocabulary:
1. Condensation—

2. Troposphere—

3. Dew point (temperature)—

4. Wet-bulb thermometer—

Materials needed: Psychrometer, water bottle ﬁlled with room temperature water, cloud
base activity and data sheets, graph paper, pencil.

Procedure:

Find an outdoor location to collect your data.

Make some observations about the weather and record on the data sheet.

Use the water bottle to saturate the cotton gauze on the wet-bulb thermometer.
Swing the psychrometer through the air for a couple of minutes, or until the wet-
bulb temperature reading stops decreasing.

Record the dry- and wet-bulb temperatures on your data sheet.

Return to the classroom to construct and interpret your graph.

PPN!"

9‘9'

84

Cloud Base Height Activity

 

 

Data Sheet

Date: Time:

Air Pressure:

Wind Speed and Direction: out of the

Cloud types seen (circle all that apply):

Cumulus Stratus Cirrus

Percent cloud cover (circle):

100 75 50 25 <25
Dry-bulb temperature: °C
Wet-bulb temperature: °C
Dew Point temperature (use chart): °C
Graphing instructions:

You will be constructing a line graph of temperature vs. altitude. There will be two
lines on this graph—one for air temperature and one for dew point temperature.

1.

The y-axis (vertical) should be labeled altitude and range from 0 to 5 km.

2. The x-axis (horizontal) should be labeled temperature and range from «10 °C to

E"

S"

40 °C. (Keep all values to the right of the y-axis.)

Plot the air temperature (dry bulb) recorded at the ground (0 km).

Continue plotting this line based on the information that air temperature decreases
at a rate of 10°C/km.

Plot the dew point temperature recorded at the ground (0 km).

Continue plotting this line based on the information that dew point temperature
decreases at a rate of 2°C/km.

Find the intersection of these two lines and record the altitude. This is the height
of the cloud base.

Cloud base height: km

 

Activity adapted ﬁom www.pbs.org
“Living Edens—Borneo”

85

Appendix D-VII

Cloud Base Height Activity
F olIow-up Questions

1. Using the wet- and dry-bulb values that you found at your data collection site,
look up the relative humidity in the table in your book. Relative humidity =

. Considering the fact that both relative humidity and dew point

indicate the amount of water vapor in the air, why do you think dew point was

used in this graphing activity?

 

2. Which type of day (warm or cold) would be expected to have lower cloud base
formation? Why?

 

3. What effect would an increase in water vapor (humidity) have on the dew point?
Raise or Lower (circle one). What effect would it have on cloud base height?
Higher or Lower (circle one). Explain.

4. Based on what you learned in this activity, explain the formation of fog.

Activity adapted from www.pbs.org
“Living Edens——Borneo”

86

Appendix D-VIII

Weather and Climate Unit
Weather Map Bulletin Board Photos

 

87

Appendix D—IX

Weather and Climate Unit
Weather Brochure

8“I Grade Science

Mrs. Tate

Name of location:

Name:

Hour:

 

Latitude:

 

Longitude:

 

Description of location:
*

Climate
1. Temperature
Minimum?
Maximum?

Factors that affect the temperature of your location:

*

2. Precipitation
Yearly rainfall?
Greatest monthly rainfall?
Snowfall?

88

Factors that affect the amount of precipitation at your location:
at

Weather
Typical day’s weather in summer:

 

 

Typical day’s weather in the winter:

 

 

How do the weather and climate affect the activities and attractions at your location?

 

 

 

How do weather and climate affect the way people live and work at your location?

 

 

 

What interesting scenery and agriculture are present due to the weather and climate?

 

 

 

89

Appendix D-X

Grading Rubric for Weather Brochure Activity

8“I Grade Science

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mrs. Tate
Content Appearance Promotional Appeal
Describes Liberal use of Uses creative wording
temperature and color, graphics and/or humor to catch
10 points—Wow! precipitation in and/or pictures. the reader’s attention.
I’ll take two detail, including Font size and style Mentions interesting
tickets. factors that enhance the look of trivia about the
inﬂuence the the brochure. Text location. Pictures,
climate. is complete and graphics and captions
correctly placed. enhance the text.
Moderate use of Occasionally uses
color, graphics creative wording or
Describes climate and/or pictures. humor to catch the
8 points—Sounds characteristics in Font size and style reader’s attention.
like a nice place. detail. Does not inconsistent. Text Some trivia about the
mention inﬂuencing is occasionally location is mentioned.
factors. broken and/or Pictures, graphics and
misplaced. captions occasionally
enhance the text.
Rarely uses creative
Occasional use of wording or humor to
Mentions climate color, graphics catch the reader’s
6 points-— characteristics. and/or pictures. attention. Very little
Hmmm. . .I’m not Does not give detail Font size and style trivia about the
so sure. or mention inconsistent. Text location is mentioned.
inﬂuencing factors. is often broken Pictures, graphics and
and/or misplaced. captions are used
without purpose.
Lacks color, Wording lacks
graphics and/or creativity and humor.
4 points—No Fails to mention pictures. Font size No trivia about the
thanks; I’d rather one or both climate and style is location is mentioned.
stay home. characteristics. distracting. Text is Pictures, graphics and
mostly broken captions detract from
and/or misplaced. the text.

 

 

 

 

90

 

Weather and Climate Unit

Appendix D-XI

Weather Travel Brochure—Location Lottery!

8'” Grade Science
Mrs. Tate

Sydney, Australia
Auckland, New Zealand
Calcutta, India

Beijing, China
Kondakova, Russia
Prince Rupert, B.C.
Halifax, Nova Scotia
Godthab, Greenland
Havana, Cuba

Quito, Ecuador

La Paz, Bolivia
Lillehammer, Norway
Warsaw, Poland
Lisbon, Portugal
Casablanca, Morocco
Kampala, Uganda
Johannesburg, South Aﬁica
Madagascar

Falkland Islands

Queensland, Tasmania
Manila, Philippines
Kabul, Afghanistan
Tokyo, Japan
Point Barrow, Alaska
Edmonton, Alberta
Reykjavik, Iceland
Cozumel, Mexico
Panama City, Panama
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Santiago, Chile
Helsinki, Finland
Madrid, Spain
Cairo, Egypt
Freetown, Sierra Leone
New Delhi, India
Cape Town, South Africa
Canary Islands

Bikini Island

91

Appendix D-XII

Weather and Climate Unit Name(s):
Paleoclimates and Pollen Activity

8" Grade Science

Mrs. Tate Hour:

Background information: Since human-recorded weather data exists only for the last
hundred years or so, scientists who wish to study past climate have to utilize other means.
One method involves collecting sediment cores ﬁ'om old lake beds, and examining the
pollen grains that became trapped in the sediment hundreds or thousands of years ago
when they ﬂoated into the lake. Sediment in the bottom of lakes is ideal for determining
pollen changes over time because it tends to be deposited in annual layers (much like tree
rings). Therefore, the sediment layers create a pollen history of the area around the lake.

Once scientists have used the pollen to identify the plant species that grew around
the lake, they can infer the climate of the layer being studied by relating it to the current
climate preferences of the same plants. In other words, if the sediment layer has a lot of
western red cedar pollen, the climate during that time was probably cool and wet, because
those are the current conditions in which that kind of tree grows best.

In this activity, you will become “paleoclimatologists” by analyzing simulated
sediment layers taken ﬁom Battleground Lake in Washington state. You will collect and
identify the pollen in each layer, and then use that information to draw some conclusions
about the paleoclimate of the region.

Pre-Activity Vocabulary:
1. paleoclimate—

2. pollen—

3. infer—

Materials needed: baggie of sediment, forceps or tweezers, pie pan, pollen key,
paleoclimate activity data table, pencil.

Procedure:

1. Empty the contents of your sediment baggie into the pie pan.

2. Sort through the sample to separate out the pollen grains from the sediment.
3. Determine from the key what species of plants are represented.

92

Record the number of each type of pollen per layer on the data sheet.

Carefully return the sediment and pollen to the baggie.

Return the baggie and pan to the front of the room and obtain another sample.
Repeat steps 1-5 for the new sediment layer.

When all groups have ﬁnished two sediment layers, you will be asked to report your
data to the class.

9°>’.°‘.V‘:‘“

Data:

Plant Species for Battleground Lake, Washington
Student Data Table

 

Sediment Layer

 

 

Plant Species 1 2 3 4 5

 

Western Hemlock

 

Douglas ﬁr

 

Grasses and Sedges

 

Alder

 

Grand ﬁr

 

Engelrnann spruce

 

Western cedar

 

Lodgepole pine

 

Mixed meadow species

 

Oak

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Alpine sagebrush

 

Analysis:
1. For each of the sediment layers, identify the dominant species present and what clues
it gives about the climate during that time.

Layer 1--- Dominant species:

 

Climate:

 

93

 

Layer 2-« Dominant species:

 

Climate:

 

Layer 3-« Dominant species:

 

Climate:

 

Layer 4-« Dominant species:

 

Climate:

 

Layer 5-« Dominant species:

 

Climate:

 

2. Why do you think that the sediment layers contained pollen ﬁ'om grasses and trees,
but not ﬂowering plants?

3. What inﬂuences besides the climate could have impacted the types or quantity of
pollen found in the sediment layers?

4. Why do you think it’s important for scientists to do this type of research?

Activity adapted from “Paleoclimates and Pollen”
www.ucar.edu/learn

94

Appendix D-XII

Paleoclimates and Pollen
Teacher Notes

Background: A fair amount of background is given on the student activity sheet, but
depending on the amount of time allotted you may want to go into detail on the
following—

Reliable human-recorded weather data only goes back about 130 yrs.

Other methods of researching paleoclimate include dendrochronology, ice
cores, and the fossil record. If you’re interested in more information on
dendrochronology, check out the University of Arizona on the web. Speaking
of U of A, Owen Davis is a pollen outreach educator. Good pictures of pollen
grains maintained on his site. (Search under “palynology”)

Actual sediment cores are approximately 5 cm in diameter and >10 m long. The
core is sampled every 10-20 cm and washed with corrosive chemicals
(potassium hydroxide, hydrochloric acid and hydrogen ﬂuoride) to remove
organic and mineral particles. The pollen remains intact because it made of
some of the most chemically resistant organic compounds in nature.

Activity Set-up:

This activity is a simulation of actual pollen data from a lake in Washington just
south of the glacial limit of the last ice age.

Construct a sediment column using a graduated cylinder or 2-liter pop bottle as
a model for the class. Use ﬁve different “sediments” for the column, and make
sure you have enough for the student samples. Good sediment materials
include: sand, dirt, aquarium gravel, etc.

Choose colored paper dots or confetti to represent the pollen types. Print copy a
copy of the pollen key for each pair of students and replace letters with confetti
or dots. It may help to laminate these, so they can be reused.

Prepare a sample of each layer. Use a re-sealable sandwich bag—put in one cup
of sediment material and pollen grains according to the teacher key. You may
want to make two or three bags of each layer. Label the bags with stickers or
permanent marker as to which layer they represent.

You are now ready to begin the activity. You may want to obtain pollen
pictures off the intemet or from print sources. Discuss with your students the
structural differences between the different species of pollen, and how scientists
can use these differences to identify the plants from which they came.

Display the sediment column and discuss the process of sedimentation and
coring. Have the students begin the activity.

After the students have collected and analyzed their data, the actual
paleoclimate of Battleground Lake should be presented. The students can see
how close they were to the actual climate.

Activity adapted from “Paleoclimates and Pollen” at www.ucar.edu/leam/1_2_2_10.htm

95

Appendix D-XII

Pollen Key for Battleground Lake, Washington

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Pollen” Plant Species Climatic Characteristics
Principle dominant tree of many lowland, temperate
Western sites. Requires very moist, temperate conditions for
Hemlock growth
Broadly distributed throughout the Paciﬁc Northwest
Douglas Fir from moderately cool to warm sites. Grows best
under temperate, somewhat moist conditions.
These grasses and sedges are typically found in very
Grasses and cool alpine/sub-alpine meadow sites characterized by
Sedges very cool summers, harsh winters and short growing
seasons.
Widespread throughout the Paciﬁc Northwest, often
Alder colonizing gravel bars or other poor soils; prefers
abundant water and can grow in cool climates.
Found at mid-elevations in the Cascade mountains.
Grand Fir Grows in cool climates, but not as cold tolerant as
trees found at high altitudes.
Engelrnann Found in cold, usually sub-alpine sites.
Spruce
Western Cedar Found only in temperate, very moist climates.
Found in areas of very cool climates typically
Lodgepole growing in poor soils, often at high altitudes (above
Pine 3,500 feet) under the present climate.
This pollen is typical of a mixture of herbaceous
Mixed meadow plants common to warm-temperate meadowlands.
species Typically, these species grow in areas of warm
summer temperatures and summer drought.
Found in warm-temperate sites characterized by dry,
Oak warm smnmers such as can be found from Oregon’s
Willamette Valley south into California.
Woody, low-growing shrub related to the sagebrush
Alpine of eastern Washington and Oregon. Found only at
Sagebrush

 

high-altitude, cold sites.

 

 

96

Appendix D-XII

Sediment Composition for Battleground Lake, Washington

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Teacher Key
Sediment Layer Plant Species Color or Shape Number of dots or
Code confetti needed

1 Western cedar G 6
(present« Western hemlock A 5
4,500 ybp) Douglas ﬁr B 10
alder D 4

2 Douglas ﬁr B 3
(4,500 ybpo- Oak J 3
9,500 ybp) Mixed meadow sp. I 19
3 Douglas ﬁr B 7
(9,500 ybp« Grand ﬁr E 5
11,200 ybp) alder D 13
Lodgepole pine H 7

4 Engelrnann spruce F 3
(11,200 ybp— Grand ﬁr E 3
15,000 ybp) Grasses & sedges C 9
Alpine sagebrush K 3

5 Grasses & sedges C 15
(15,000 ybp« Alpine sagebrush K 4
20,000 ybp) Lodgepole pine H 4
Engelrnann spruce F 2

 

 

 

 

97

 

Appendix D-XII

Paleoclimate of Battleground Lake, Washington
Actual Paleoclimate—Overhead Transparency

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Layer Time Period Description
A cooler and moister period than the previous one. The
1 Present— dry-land vegetation has been replaced by the coniferous
4,500 ybp forests seen today. Hemlock and Western red cedar
dominate the areas undisturbed by logging.
The climate continues to be warm with mild, moist winters
2 4,500— and warm, dry summers. The forests of the previous
9,500 ybp period disappear, and are replaced by more drought-
adapted species: mixed oak, Douglas ﬁr and dry
meadowland.
The warming continues and the ﬁrst occurrence of
3 9,500— “modern” temperate coniferous forest is found in this
11,200 ybp period. Douglas ﬁr, alder and Grand ﬁr dominate. The
climate is similar to today’s climate.
Glaciers have begun to recede as the climate starts a
warming trend. Although still cold compared to the
4 11,200— present climate, warming has allowed more extensive
15,000 ybp forests of Lodgepole pine, Engelrnann spruce and Grand ﬁr
to replace the tundra vegetation previously seen.
Glacial maximum, with nearly a vertical mile of ice over
Seattle, and the continental glaciers extending south of
5 15,000— present-day Olympia. An alpine glacier from Mt. St.
20,000 ybp Helens reaches to within 30 km of the lake site. The

 

 

climate was cold, with a short growing season. The
landscape resembled arctic tundra, with alpine grasses and
sedges, low woody shrubs, and occasional tree islands of
cold- tolerant Engehnann spruce and Lodgepole pine.

 

Activity adapted from “Paleoclimates and Pollen” at www.ucar.edu/leam/1_2_2_10.htm

98

 

 

 

 

 

Appendix D-XIII

Weather and Climate Unit
Study Guide

8" Grade Science

Mrs. Tate

Topic 1: Understanding Earth’s Atmosphere
0 The layers of the atmosphere include the troposphere, stratosphere, mesosphere
and thermosphere.
o Earth’s weather takes place in the tromsphere.

Topic 2: Air Pressure and Density

0 When air is heated, its density decreases because the molecules spread out.
When air is cooled its density increases because the molecules come together.
As elevation (altitude) increases, the density of air decreases (air gets thinner).
Moist air is less dense than dry air.
Air pressure is measured with a barometer.

 

Topic 3: Heat Transfer in the Atmosphere
0 Conduction is the direct transfer of heat from one substance to another.
0 Convection is the transfer of heat through a ﬂuid (air or water). Warm air rises;
cool air sinks.
0 Radiation is the transfer of heat through a vacuum.

Topic 4: Temperature Controls
Climate factors that affect temperature:

0 Latitude—locations closer to the equator receive more direct rays of the Sun.

0 Elevation—as you go up higher in the mountains, the temperature decreases.

o Nearness to a body of water—moderates temperature. (Southern Hemisphere has
more surface area covered by water, so temperatures are not as extreme as in the
Northern Hemisphere.)

- Ocean currents——the Gulf Stream is a warm water current in the Atlantic.

Other info:
0 Seasons are caused by Earth’s tilt on its axis (235°).
0 Solstices (smnmer and winter) occur when the Sun’s direct rays hit one of the
Tropic lines.
Eguinoxes (spring and fall) occur when the Sun’s direct rays hit the Equator.
The Gree_nhou_se effect is caused by grbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

Topic 5: Wind Formation and Types

0 Wind is caused by differences in air pressure due to unequal heating of the Earth.
Air moves from high pressure to low pressure.

99

A sea breeze happens when warm air over land rises and a cool breeze from the
water moves in to take its place.

A cyclone is a low pressure system.

An anticyclone is a high pressure system.

The Coriolis Effect is caused by the rotation of the Earth.

The global winds that we experience are the prevailing westerlies. The other belts
are the trade winds and the polar easterlies.

Wind speed is measured with an anemometer.

Topic 6: Moisture in the Air
Climate factors that affect precipitation (increase):

Location on the windward side of a mountain
Location near a body of water where the prevailing wind blows from water to
land. Example: West Michigan

Other info:

Water vamr is the gas form of water.

The amount of water vapor can be expressed in terms of relative humidig or the
dew pgint temmrature. Both are measured with a psychrometer.

The heat stress index takes into account heat and humidity.

Clouds are made of liquid water that has condensed on dust particles in the air.
The three main cloud types are cumulus (big puffy), stratus (smooth gray) and
pin—us (high wiSpy).

gig is basically a cloud that forms at ground level. The air must cool to the dew
point temperature.

Topic 7: Air Masses and Fronts

An air mass is a large body of air that has a uniform temperature and moisture
content.

A maritime air mass forms over water and is m_oi_s_t.

A continental air mass forms overland and is ﬂy.

A tropical air mass forms near the equator and is m.

A m air mass forms at high-latitudes and is po_1c_l.

A M is the boundary between air masses.

Cold front: thunderstorms; behind it are cooler temperatures.

Warm front: rain showers; behind it are warmer temperatures.

Topic 8: Climate
The three climate zones are:

Tropical zone--30° N to 30° S

Temperate zones--30° to 60° N and S

Polar zones«60° to 90° N and S

El Nino is a shift in a current in the Paciﬁc Ocean that causes worldwide climate
change.

Scientist can study past climate by looking at sediment cores or tree rings.

100

Appendix D-XIV

Weather and Climate Unit Name:
Review Crossword Puzzle
8‘” Grade Science Hour:
Mrs. Tate
Across
1. A(n) ﬁont will bring rain showers, and behind it will be an

 

increase in temperature.
2. Global wind belt experienced by Whitehall, Michigan. (Abbreviation)
3. One way of measuring the amount of humidity in the air is by calculating the
temperature.
4. This is the layer of the atmosphere in which weather takes place.
6. An anticyclone is another name for a pressure system.
11. The amount of incoming solar radiation that a location receives is known as

 

 

13. A is the boundary between two air masses.

15. This is caused by differences in air pressure due to unequal heating of the Earth.
16. Precipitation known as hail is really just little pellets of .

19. Wind speed is measured with a(n)
20. Big, puffy fair weather clouds are known as

 

 

 

 

21 . The effect 1s caused by rotation of the Earth on its axis.
22. The equator is located at 0° .
23. The climate zone that we live in is the zone.

 

25. Lines on a weather map that connect places with equal temperature are known as

 

26. is a climate change brought on by a shifting current in the
Paciﬁc Ocean.

 

Down

The gas form of water is called

This characteristic of air is measured with a barometer.

As air is heated, its decreases.

This instrument is made up of wet-bulb and dry-bulb thermometers.

The is a warm-water current off the east coast of the

United States.

The seasons are caused by the of Earth on its axis.

The heat index indicates what temperature it feels like due to the

humidity in the air on a hot, summer day.

10. The ﬁrst day of summer and winter are known scientiﬁcally as

12. When warm air over land rises, and cool air from over the water moves in to take
its place, it is known as a breeze.

14. As elevation (altitude) , temperature decreases.

 

 

N50919:"

99°

 

 

 

101

17. A low pressure system is known scientiﬁcally as a
18. The moisture content of a continental air mass would be .
19. A large body of air with a uniform temperature and moisture content is called a(n)

 

 

24. Cold air is . dense than warm air.

102

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Weather and Climate Unit Name:
Review Crossword Puzzle
8tll Grade Science
Mrs. Tate
1
r 3
4
6 7
10
ll 12
l3
14
15
l6 17
18
19 20
21
22 23 24
25
26

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

103

 

 

Appendix D-XV

Weather and Climate Unit Name (optional):
Post-Unit Survey

1. Which activities in this unit did you enjoy the most? Why?

2. Which activities in this unit did you enjoy the least? Why?

3. During this unit speciﬁcally, what helped you learn the most?

104

 

Appendix E-I

February 21, 2003

Dear Students/Parents/ Guardians,

For the past three years I have been working on a Masters of Science degree
through the Division of Science and Mathematics Education at Michigan State
University. This past summer I redesigned a unit that I teach on weather and climate.
The new unit plan includes more inquiry based laboratory exercises, data collection and
analysis, and more direct application of the material to current climate issues. The unit
will last approximately ﬁve weeks.

In order to evaluate the effectiveness of this unit, I will be collecting data through
pre- and post-tests, inquiry and reﬂection questions ﬁom the laboratory, ﬁeld experiences
and homework. This work is required of all students independently of my thesis. With
your permission, I would like to use your student’s scores from the aforementioned items
for my master’s thesis. At no time will any student’s name be used in, or connected
to the thesis.

In addition to the above data collection, I also plan to take photographs of the
students when we are doing various laboratory and ﬁeld research activities. These photos
may be used to enhance my thesis defense and a possible presentation to other science
teachers at a state science conference. As above, no student’s name or individual data
will be attached to these photographs.

Please complete the attached permission form and return it to me by February 28,
2003. I am asking to use your student’s data from the weather and climate unit for my
thesis. There is no penalty for denying permission to use this data. Your decision will
not affect your student’s grade in any way. Declining permission will not exempt your
student from doing the same assignments as everyone else, it just means that I will be
unable to use his/her data in my thesis. Should you choose to withdraw your student
ﬁom the study after signing the permission form, you may do so at any time. Your
student’s privacy will be protected to the maximum extent allowable by law.

Thank you for your time. If you have any questions regarding participant’s rights
as human subjects for research please contact the Internal Review Board Chairperson,
Ashir Kumar, 202 Olds Hall, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI 48824; the
telephone number is (517) 355-2180 and the email is ucrihs@msu.edu. Please contact me at
893-1030 ext. 4119 with any questions or concerns about your child or this study.

 

Sincerely,

Mrs. Susan Tate
8'” Grade Science Teacher
Whitehall Junior High School

105

Please read the following permission statements carefully and check all that apply:

Data Use:

I give Mrs. Tate permission to use my son/daughter’s data collected from the
weather and climate unit for her thesis. I understand that Mrs. Tate will not use my
son/daughter’s name and that all student data will remain conﬁdential to the maximum
extent allowable by law.

I do not wish Mrs. Tate to use my son/daughter’s data collected from the
weather and climate unit for her thesis. I understand that there is no penalty for declining
permission to use the data.

Photogr_aph Use:

1 give Mrs. Tate permission to use my son/daughter’s photograph, taken during
laboratory and ﬁeld research activities, in the presentation of her thesis defense. I
understand that my son/ daughter’s name will in no way be attached to these photographs.

I do not wish Mrs. Tate to use my son/daughter’s photograph in the presentation
of her thesis defense.

 

 

 

Si tures:

Student Name (Printed)

Student Signature Date
Parent/Guardian Signature Date

 

 

106

   

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