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 know that changes in the atmosphere result in changes in weather. Students will have practice in the observation of weather phenomena.
Teaching Ideas and Tips
Make copies of Weather: Learning Activities – Cold/Warm Fronts from Printables. Using a smart board or overhead projector, help students complete this page to better understand why thunderstorms occur. On this paper, students will learn how meteorologists indicate cold and warm fronts on a weather map and how cold fronts cause storms. This two-page activity paper also contains fun word search activities and a math connection.
Print out one copy of More Weather Activities
This contains a chart for calculating how far away a thunderstorm is from the time you see the lightning and hear the thunder. (Light travels at 186,000 miles per second, so we see a flash of lightning immediately. But sound travels just 1,100 feet per second, so even though the lightning and thunder occur at the same time, there is a time lapse between when we observe them.) Teach students how to count the number of seconds between the time they see a flash of lightning and the time they hear a clap of thunder. Come up with a multi-syllable word to use to help them count seconds. (One hippopotamus, two hippopotamus, three hippopotamus, etc.) Match the counting to a timer or with the second hand on the classroom clock so students get a feel for how long a "second" actually is.
Help students practice counting the seconds and determining how much time lapses between the flash of lightning and a clap of thunder. (You can flip the lights off and on to be the lightning; clap your hands to be the thunder.) Then help students translate this information to the chart to determine how far away an impending storm might be.
Explain that his information is important if you are outside and need to get out of the path of a storm quickly. Counting the number of seconds and determining how far away the storm might be can help you to get to safety before the storm is in your backyard!
Classroom Management
Most areas of the country have a "rainy season." Try to do this activity close to the time of year that your area may experience thunder and lightning storms. Contact www.weatherchannel.com your local newspaper or television stations for predicted chances of thunderstorms.
When you are doing the assessment activity, have a plan. Look at the chart from Printables and plan how many seconds you intend to leave between the "lightning" and the "thunder." Write these down ahead or time or as you do the activity. Use a stopwatch or timer to make sure you leave the exact number of seconds between the two events. Use your own notes to grade the accuracy of your students’ work.
Vocabulary
Cold Front – A cold front is the boundary of where cold air is moving in and pushing warmer air out of the way. Cold fronts are indicated on weather maps by triangles along a line.
Warm Front – a warm front is warm air that moves cold air out of the way. Warm fronts are indicated on weather maps by semi-circles along a line.
Lightning – "Lightning" is flashes of light seen in the sky usually during a thunderstorm. Lightning is caused by electricity in the clouds.
Thunder – "Thunder" is a loud rumbling noise caused by the air that is suddenly heated by a flash of lightning.
Printables Resources
Flash cards (Skill: Review weather terms)
Weather Bingo (Skill: Review weather terms)
Reading Umbrella – (Students use this to record titles of books they have read.)
The Storm Is Coming (Skill: determine cause and effect.)
The Storm (Skill: Improving vocabulary skills)
Assessment
Have students make a heading on a sheet of paper. On the far left side of the paper, beside the red margin line, have students write numbers from 1-10. Then tell your class that a storm is coming. Dim or turn off the lights. Stand behind a screen, bookcase, door or other barrier in the classroom. Announce, "This is storm number one." Then flash a strong flashlight, wait a few seconds a make a loud thunder noise (A wooden spoon repeatedly hit against an aluminum pot will give a good sound.) Students should count the number of seconds between the flash and the thunder sound and write on their papers how many seconds they counted. Have them consult their charts and then write how far away "storm number one" might be.
Do this 10 times, each time varying the number of seconds between the flash and the thunder.
Assign grades based on the students’ ability to accurately perform the task of counting the seconds and consulting the chart. If necessary, have the students make two column on their papers so that the first column is a place to record seconds and the second is the place to record how far away the storm is – determined by consulting the charts.
If you have provided students with definitions of lightning and thunder and if they are advanced enough to understand that light travels faster than sound, you could also ask students to tell what lightning and thunder are and to explain why we see the light before we hear the thunder.
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 Families,
It is vitally important that our students know how to be safe in a thunderstorm. We have been learning how to determine how far away a storm might be by counting the seconds between the flash of lightning and the sound of thunder. Please look at the attached chart to see one way this distance can be estimated.
The next time it storms – pull out this chart and practice counting the seconds between the flash of lightning and the clap of thunder. Then see how long it takes for the storm to actually reach your area. You can help your child better understand weather and storms by allowing him or her to watch the weather forecasts on your local television stations. There they usually have radar and estimated traveling speed of the storm. See how close you can get to making an accurate prediction of when the storm might hit your neighborhood.
_____________
Homework
Print copies of Weather Word Search as a homework assignment and a review of weather terms.
Weather Crossword Puzzle (Skill: Review of advanced weather terms)
Students will need to have other weather instruction before they can complete this page.
More to Explore
Instant Internet Activities
Show your students incredible photographs of lightning found at http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=lightning+and+thunder&go=&form=QBIR&qs=n&sk=&sc=8-9
Lightning – Teacher page; Great for explanations and vocabulary; Also has lesson plans for teachers.
Weather poems from students of all ages. Just click on these to enlarge and read.
Rain and Floods – Teacher page; contains definitions and lesson plans
Follow-Up Activities:
Teach your students to exercise caution when they are in or near a thunderstorm. Help them do research on the internet to find out ways to be safe in these situations. Basic safety rules include using these precautions: Do not play outside if you see lightning or hear thunder. Do not stand under a tree in a lightning storm. Stay away from metal objects during a storm. Do not talk on the telephone (even cell phones) during a storm. Do not go back outside to play until 30 minutes after the time you last heard thunder.
