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Weather and Climate

Mini-Unit on Energy in the Earth System

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Essential Questions

  • How does energy move through Earth's systems?
  • How can we use trends to predict future events?
  • Is the climate changing? How do we know?

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DAY 1: Glaciers

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Engage

Glaciers Now and Then Activity

You will be viewing 34 pictures of glaciers. Each glacier has a before and after image. Using landmarks and reference points, try to match up the glaciers.

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Complete page 1 of the shared document and #1 and 2 of page 2. x

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Repeat Photography

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Explore

Why Glaciers Matter

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On Thinner Ice

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Extra:

Explore More

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DAY 2: Glaciers

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Explore/Explain

What are glaciers?

Quick overview of glaciers (20 min)

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CW and/or HW:

Complete the Glacier Worksheet

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DAY 3: Climate vs. Weather Intro

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MONDAY

DAY 3: Global Temperature Variation

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  • Watch the Brainpop movies --- submit the quizzes to me!
  • EXPLAIN
    • Climate vs. weather
      • Brainpop: Weather
      • Brainpop: Climate

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Engage (15 min)

Color Coding the World's Temperatures

  • Predict what the temperatures would look like across the world in January.
  • Color this according to the provided key.
  • Predict what the temperatures would look like across the world in July.
  • Color this according to the provided key.
  • Pair-and-Share
    • Discuss similarities and differences between Jan and July and between partners maps.

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Explore (10 min)

Watch the animation of the average annual temperatures. This is data from 1948-2007.

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Stopped in January...

  • How does your picture compare to the actual data?
  • Where were you correct/incorrect?

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Stopped in July...

  • How does your picture compare to the actual data?
  • Where were you correct/incorrect?

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TUESDAY

DAY 4: Climate Variation

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Explain (5 min)

Using padlet, make at least one unique but informative comment about something that sticks out.

  • Use first name last initial only.
  • Describe the pattern/change
  • Try to explain what you think is happening

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Explain (10 min)

Discuss key points recorded on Padlet.

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  • What were common key points seen?
  • What explains the patterns you see?
  • How does temperature relate to climate?

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Land vs. Water?

    • Why are there differences?

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Explain (20 min)

Why does climate vary in different places around Earth?

  • Latitude
  • Elevation/Altitude
  • Proximity to Water
  • Terrain

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Extend (15 min)

Find places that show areas with differing climates based on the following:

  • Latitude
  • Elevation/Altitude
  • Proximity to Water
  • Terrain

Use the NCEP animation and the two following slides.

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For example, Maine's coast does not get as cold as Maine's interior in the winter due to the proximity to the water.

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Extend

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DAY 6: Water

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Engage

Discuss key points recorded on Padlet.

  • What were common key points seen?
  • What explains the patterns you see?
  • Why does climate vary in different places around Earth?
  • Latitude
  • Elevation/Altitude
  • Proximity to Water
  • Terrain

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Set-Up

What does water have to do with climate?

  • How does living near the ocean affect our climate?
  • Why???

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Demonstration -->

Specific heat of land vs water...

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Make a hypothesis.

  1. Which will heat up faster and why?
  2. Which will cool off faster and why?

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Explain (2 min)

What does water have to do with climate?

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Check in on our experiment...

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Which heated up the fastest?

Which cooled off the fastest?

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What is going on?

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DAY 7: Local Data Analysis

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Explain

CLAIMS, EVIDENCE, AND REASONING

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  • How can we use trends to predict future events?
  • Is the climate changing? How do we know?

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Using NUMBERS spreadsheets as a graphing tool:

We will further explore these questions by analyzing data collected over this year.

We will continue the discussion looking at data collected over the past 5 years.

We will compare this data with data collected over the past 50 years.

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Regional Data Analysis

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Regional Climate Patterns

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  • Changes over time in...
    • Temperature
    • Snowfall
    • Days snow is on ground
    • Growing season
    • Precipitation
    • Sea level
    • Glacial melt
    • Atmospheric CO2

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Temperature

  • Temperature is the measure of the local thermal energy of matter or radiation.
    • Measured with thermometer
    • Measured in one of the following units: Celcius, Fahrenheit or Kelvin

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Snowfall

  • Process of precipitating snow
  • "Snowfall" is different than "number of days snow on ground" - how so?

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Growing Season

  • The period each year when native plants and crops can be grown. Usually means the days between last and first frost.
    • What are some plants/crops native to Maine?

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Precipitation

  • Product of condensation from atmospheric water vapor
    • Includes rain, snow, sleet, hail
    • Is fog precipitation? What about mist? You decide...

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Sea level

  • Average height of ocean's surface

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Glacial melt

Think back to "Glaciers Then & Now"

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Glacial Melt

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Another term to know... "Ice Out"

  • The disappearance of ice from a surface body of water (ex:lake) due to thawing

OR...

  • The time ice is literally "out" or gone and you cannot cross the body of water on ice

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http://me.water.usgs.gov/iceout.html

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Atmospheric CO2

  • A measure (in parts per million - ppm) of the amount of CO2 gas in Earth's atmosphere.

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