Liz Zelencich

Program Co-ordinator
NEWSPAPERS IN EDUCATION
Email your thoughts to nie@thestandard.fairfax.com.au
NEWSPAPERS IN EDUCATION
12 TUESDAY, September 2, 2014 The Standard www.standard.net.au
W
e
a
t
h
e
r
Whats the weather?
The blanket of air around the earth is called the atmosphere. All our weather happens in the bottom layer of the atmosphere
called the troposphere, which is seventeen kilometres thick. Meteorology is the study of the changes in temperature, air
pressure, moisture, and wind direction in the troposphere.
What are clouds?
A cloud is a large collection of very
tiny droplets of water or ice crystals. The droplets
are so small and light that they can float in the air.
All air contains water, but near the ground it is
usually in the form of an invisible gas called water
vapor. When warm air rises, it expands and cools.
Cool air can't hold as much water vapor as warm
air, so some of the vapor condenses onto tiny
pieces of dust that are floating in the air and forms
a tiny droplet around each dust particle. When
billions of these droplets come together they
become a visible cloud.
The sun starts it all
There is one basic reason we have weather, and that is
the sun. Weather systems start because the sun's
energy heats up some parts of Earth more than others.
Most of the time the sun shines most directly on the
middle of Earth, with less heating at the north and
south poles. Earth is tilted on its axis at exactly the
right angle to have seasons, with different parts of
Earth being heated more or less during different times
of the year. Land heats up faster than water, setting
up temperature differences between oceans and
continents. This unequal heating creates variations in
temperature and air pressure, winds, and ocean
currents.
What else does the sun do?
Heating from the sun can also trigger thunderstorms.
Clusters of thunderstorms over warm ocean waters
can turn into hurricanes. The sun is behind all the
changes in our weather, and if the sun were to
suddenly go out, our weather
machine would stop too.
Clouds in art
View the Clouds in art presentation found at:
http://www.windows.ucar.edu/teacher_resources/cloudart_present.ppt#19
For each slide in the presentation,
ask students to comment on the following:
What do you see in the painting?
What does the weather look like?
What kinds of clouds are in the sky?
What colors did the artist use to paint these clouds?
What type of brushstrokes did the artist use?
View beautiful pictures of clouds at:
http://cloudappreciationsociety.org/
Research the Morning Glory Cloud
What causes lightning?
Lightning is an electric current. Within a thundercloud way up in the sky, many small bits of ice (frozen
raindrops) bump into each other as they move around in the air. All of those collisions create an electric
charge. After a while, the whole cloud fills up with electrical charges. The positive charges or protons
form at the top of the cloud and the negative charges or electrons form at the bottom of the cloud.
Since opposites attract, that causes a positive charge to build up on the ground beneath the cloud.
The ground electrical charge concentrates around anything that sticks up, such as mountains,
people, or single trees. The charge coming up from these points eventually connects with a charge
reaching down from the clouds and - zap - lightning strikes!
What causes a thunderstorm?
The basic ingredients used to make a thunderstorm are moisture, unstable air and lift. You need moisture
to form clouds and rain. You need unstable air that is relatively warm and can rise rapidly.
Finally, you need lift. This can form from fronts, sea breezes or mountains.
Thunderstorms can occur year-round and at all hours. But they are most likely
to happen in the spring and summer months and
during the afternoon and evening hours.
What makes rain?
In cold air way up in the sky, rain clouds will often form. Rising warm air carries water
vapor high into the sky where it cools, forming water droplets around tiny bits of dust in the
air. Some vapor freezes into tiny ice crystals which attract cooled water drops. The drops
freeze to the ice crystals, forming larger crystals we call snowflakes. When the snowflakes
become heavy, they fall. When the snowflakes meet warmer air on the way down, they melt
into raindrops. In tropical climates, cloud droplets combine together around dust or sea salt
particles. They bang together and grow in size until they're heavy enough to fall.
How do we get rainbows?
Rainbows are spectacular rays of color. Sunlight looks white, but it's really made up of
different colors...red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet. The sun makes
rainbows when white sunlight passes through rain drops. The raindrops act like tiny
prisms. They bend the different colors in white light, so the light spreads out into a band of
colors that can be reflected back to you as a rainbow.
Earth's amazing water
Earth is also unique in that all three forms of water-liquid, solid and gas-exist naturally. Heating from the
sun helps evaporate water from the oceans as a source for clouds and precipitation. The sun-powered
circulations of evaporation, condensation and precipitation move Earth's water from the oceans to the
atmosphere to land and back between these three forms.
What is wind?
Wind is air in motion. It is produced by the uneven heating of the earths surface by the sun. Since the
earths surface is made of various land and water formations, it absorbs the suns radiation unevenly.
Two factors are necessary to specify wind: speed and direction. As the sun warms the Earth's surface,
the atmosphere warms too. Some parts of the Earth receive direct rays from the sun all year and are
always warm. Other places receive indirect rays, so the climate is colder. Warm air, which weighs less
than cold air, rises. Then cool air moves in and replaces the rising warm air. This movement of air is
what makes the wind blow.
Weather Wonderings
Make a big "Weather Word" chart. As you learn a new word, add the word to the
chart with a simple definition.
Write out some weather words on separate slips of paper and put them into a box.
You and a friend can pick out a word and act it out together without talking. Have
others try to guess what the word is.
Write out as many words as you can using the letters in the word METEOROLOGY.
Some weather words are made of two words put together. How many of these
"compound" weather words can you think of? (sunshine, sunlight, raindrop, etc.)
Make a big class mural. Divide your class into groups of three or four students.
Have each group take a weather concept (rain, sun, thunderstorm, etc.) and create a mural. When each
group completes its section, have them share its meaning with the class. Tape each part together.