Track the weather in your area over a two-week period. Use bar graphs and line graphs to illustrate the results of your study in a colorful way!

• 1.

  Graphs allow us to easily identify and compare data as the result of a study. Two common types of graphs are bar graphs and line graphs. Bar graphs use vertical or horizontal rectangles (bars) to represent a specified quantity. Line graphs use points to identify values, and then connect each point with a line that shows the fluctuations in the data. Look at examples of each type of graph with your class. What information is included on each?

• 2.

  Study the local weather with your class over the next two weeks. On the classroom whiteboard, keep track of the temperature if the weather is sunny, cloudy, rainy or windy each day. Will some days be rainy and windy, or sunny and cloudy? For days like these, choose the one description that depicts the day the most.

• 3.

  At the end of the two-weeks, chart your results! Use Crayola® Dry-Erase Markers or Dry-Erase Crayons to create a colorful bar graph on the whiteboard showing how many days were sunny, cloudy, rainy and windy. Display the temperature results using a line graph!

Standards

• LA: Read with sufficient accuracy and fluency to support comprehension.
• LA: Acquire and use accurately grade-appropriate conversational, general academic, and domain specific words and phrases, including those that signal spatial and temporal relationships.
• LA: Read and comprehend informational texts, including history/social studies, science, and technical texts, at the high end of the grade level text complexity band independently and proficiently.
• LA: Participate in collaborative conversations with diverse partners about grade level topics and texts with peers and adults in small and larger groups.
• LA: Conduct short research projects to answer a question, drawing on several sources and refocusing the inquiry when appropriate.
• LA: Report on a topic or text, tell a story, or recount an experience with appropriate facts and relevant, descriptive details, speaking clearly at an understandable pace.
• MATH: Extend understanding of fraction equivalence and ordering.
• MATH: Represent and interpret data.
• SCI: Represent data in tables and graphical displays to describe typical weather conditions expected during a particular season.
• SCI: Obtain and combine information to describe climates in different regions of the world.
• VA: Use different media, techniques, and processes to communicate ideas, experiences, and stories.

Adaptations

• Possible classroom resources include: Weather by Seymour Simon; National Geographic Kids Everything Weather: Facts, Photos, and Fun that Will Blow You Away by Kathy Furgang; DK Eyewitness Books: Weather by Brian Cosgrove
• On any given day, the weather will vary in different parts of the state, country, or continent. Invite students to select a city in the opposite part of their country or on another continent and track the weather for the same two-week period as the class is tracking local weather. Compare and contrast weather conditions.
• Encourage students to watch weather reports on television or the Internet at home. Have students write down the unique vocabulary used by meteorologists. Have students research the definitions of each term for use during this study.
• Invite a local meteorologist to visit with the class. If a face-to-face meeting cannot be arranged, suggest a Skype meeting. Prior to the visit, students write questions for the meteorologist. After the meeting, students post learning to a class blog.
• Students analyze their two-week local weather results together. Encourage students to question the logic of their findings. Do they add up to 14 days? Which type of weather was most common over the two weeks? Which type of weather was least common? Individually, have students analyze their self-selected weather study from another city. How do these results compare to those of the local community?
• Encourage students to extend their knowledge of fractions and ratios and represent each type of weather using this math concept. For example, "2 out of 14 days were cloudy." Have students write this data in fraction form. Add up the fractions. Do they add up to the whole number 1?