NSTA Standards
Students should understand the basic characteristics of the atmosphere, weather and climate; know that changes in the atmosphere result in weather and climate; have practice in observation of weather phenomena, experimentation, data collection, and making inferences to test ideas; have experience with metric measurement; possess a weather vocabulary.
Key Concepts
Students will learn how rainfall amounts are measured and will further develop their weather vocabularies.
Teaching Ideas and Tips
Make copies of the folloeing pages:
Make a Rain Gauge
My Weather Report
Help your students learn how to make a weather instrument, take accurate readings, and keep a weather record over a period of time.
Begin by collecting several plastic straight-sided containers and a large bag of pebbles. Make sure very child has a 12 inch plastic ruler and some clear tape.
Have students cover the bottom of their container with pebbles. Then add water to one inch above the pebbles. On the outside of the container, tape the cut out rain gauge so that the bottom of it is at the top of the water. (Specific directions are on Make a Rain Gauge.) Take the rain gauges outside and let it rain! Measure the amount of rain and record it on "My Weather Report" chart.
After students have learned how to accurately measure and record their information, choose a time period (every day for two weeks?) during which they will repeat this activity. Each day’s rainfall amount and other pertinent information should be recorded.
Classroom Management
Most locations have a "rainy season." Try to conduct these experiments during the rainiest time of your school year.
Containers for the rain gauges need to be clear, and for safety reasons, plastic is a better choice than glass. Choose a variety of sizes of containers to make the rain gauges. Be sure they have straight sides as opposed to containers that slope outward or inward. (Soda bottles, mayonnaise jars or pie plates will not provide accurate readings.)
If possible, allow every child to make a rain gauge rather than sharing the task with a friend. This will be easier if you have students bring in some of the containers and a few pebbles. If you are asking parents to provide these things, make sure you allow several days for the collection process.
For best results, and to assure accuracy, make your own gauge and do your own measuring – just to be sure that students are getting accurate readings.
Make sure you place the containers away from tree branches and away from the runoff from roofs.
Consider allowing students to take the gauges home and measure the rainfall over the course of a weekend. You can compare their measurements with the weather report from your area.
If you have several days without rain, make sure the water level in the gauge is just at the bottom of the paper rain gauge. You may need to periodically add water to keep the readings accurate.
The rain gauge activity measures the rain in inches. Consider making your own gauge to measure the rain in centimeters.
Vocabulary
Precipitation – Precipitation is water in any form that falls from the sky. Includes rain, hail, sleet, and snow.
Rain - Rain is the liquid form of precipitation
Gauge – A gauge is an instrument used to measure something.
Printables Resources
Whether the Weather poem (Skill: Enjoying poetry; vocabulary development)
Mimi’s Sunny Vacation (Skill: Reading a math chart)
Cleveland’s Weather Update (Skill: Reading a graph; math skills)
How Hurricanes Get Their Names (Skill: How to read a chart and determine a pattern.)
Word search (Skill: This is an advanced word search)
Assessment
Have students use graph paper to make a chart of the rainfall amounts over the course of a week, two weeks or even a month. Simply have students label the y-axis as "Quarter inches of rainfall" (so that it would take four little squares to make one whole inch), and the x-axis with the days of the week. Because students will be making a bar graph, make sure they skip lines between the days of the week.
After they transfer the information from "My Weather Report" to the graph, ask students to write three to five "truth statements." A "truth statement" is a piece of information that can be gleaned by looking at the chart. Example: There was more rain on Monday than on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday combined.
You could also determine the landmarks on your graph by having students determine the mean, median, mode, range and average amounts of rainfall on specific days.
You can also assign a performance assessment for the students’ ability to follow directions, to make accurate measurements and recordings, to complete "My Weather Report," and for his or her ability to create and analyze the information on the graph.
Send Home Letter
Try printing this send home letter on Weather Stationery. Or you can also print this letter on your own - copy/paste the letter below into a Microsoft Word document. You can add or remove text and customize the letter to your liking.
Dear Parents,
Our class has been studying weather. We have made rain gauges and tracked the amount of rainfall on our playground. To make the gauge be accurate, we lined the bottom with pebbles and then added water to one inch above the highest stone. Then we taped on the gauge strip and set the gauges outside. We measured rain on the following days: _________ , _________, ______, ________, ___________. You can see the results of our experiment if you look at the attached "My Weather Report" page.
We also transferred our information to sheets of graph paper and analyzed the results. You can use the rain gauge at home to help determine when you need to water the lawn or garden or when to draw down the water level in the pool.
_________
Homework
Print out Printables Precipitation Map Precipitation Map (You only need page two) and discuss it with your students. Make sure they know the word “precipitation” refers to any kind of water falling from the sky and that they see the differences between the different symbols that indicate that precipitation. If you want them to write out the complete names of the states, download Be Brief! Activity Page Postal Abbreviations and include it with the homework page. Here students will find the proper abbreviations for every state.
Print out Weather a crossword puzzle
More to Explore
Instant Internet Activities
Who knew there were hundreds of kinds of rain gauges? This page is a must!
Internet Scavenger Hunt – Temperature
Internet Scavenger Hunt - Hurricane Hunters
Internet Scavenger Hunt - Meteorology Program
Follow-Up Activities:
Look at the various types of containers that were used to make the rain gauges. They are not all the same diameter or height. Are the measurements the same for the container that was 2" in diameter and the one that was 8” in diameter? (Yes.) Help students figure out why this is true.
If you live in an area that gets snow, the "rain gauges" can still be used to measure snow. Empty the rain gauges, move the marker to the bottom of the container, and set them out to capture snowfall. Measure and record the amount received. Now challenge students to predict how much water the melted snow produces. Melt the snow in your classroom and re-measure.
