Precipitation Towers: Modeling Weather Data
Lesson Plans
GradesK, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5Earth and Space Sciences, Mathematics
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Provided by NASA
What it is
- In this lesson, students will examine precipitation data in various American cities, how storms move around the world, and the negative impacts of extreme precipitation.
- Students will engage in a classroom activity that involves stacking cubes and pattern recognition, videos that delve into the implications of extreme precipitation, and an assessment that gauges their comprehension of the lesson's material.
Teaching tips
Positives
- This lesson does not require an extensive amount of materials.
- This lesson provides many opportunities for extension, such as describing large frontal storm formation, the drought classification system, and the importance of precise precipitation data.
Additional Prerequisites
- This lesson has a "background" section about precipitation for educators to deepen their understanding.
- Students should understand precipitation, how to use models to represent data, and how to analyze and compare bar graphs.
Differentiation
- This lesson can fit within a larger unit on how climate change impacts precipitation/seasonal patterns.
- Some elements of this lesson are better suited for older students, such as researching precipitation data.
- Students can look at and graph the precipitation data of their community, independently or as a whole class, and compare the data to that of other cities.
- Classes can choose one city and graph the annual average precipitation data and look for trends.
- This lesson can support a classroom discussion about seasonal weather patterns that students have noticed in their community.
From the scientist review
This resource is from the CLEAN collection. “The CLEAN collection is hand-picked and rigorously reviewed for scientific accuracy and classroom effectiveness.”
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