It's Our Air - Weather Log
SUPPLEMENTAL ACTIVITY: KEEPING A WEATHER LOG
Several activities in It’s Our Air can benefit from having students keep a weather log (see list below).
MATERIALS:
- thermometers
- sling psychrometers (optional, for measuring relative humidity)
- rain gauges
- anemometers (for measuring wind speed)
- directional compasses
- barometers (optional, for measuring atmospheric pressure)
Introduce your students to some of the properties of air and get them thinking about weather and weather prediction by having them keep a weather log for a week or longer. Teach students how to collect data such as temperature, relative humidity, precipitation, air pressure, wind speed and direction, and cloud cover. Divide students into groups of three, and assign each member of the group a role: Equipment Manager, Data Collector, Data Recorder. For several minutes each day, have the groups collect and record weather data at various sites around campus. Encourage students to use each day’s data to predict the weather for the following day. Students can also look up the air quality index each day and add this to their weather logs. (Note: Students look up air quality measurements each day for a week in Activity 2-1: “What’s an Air Quality Index?”)
