Climate and Weather

Climate and Weather

Warm-up: Show students this video to introduce the topic of climate and weather or activate prior knowledge.

Note: This video becomes pixilated when enlarged. It would be best to assign to students through Google classroom instead of projecting.

http://video.nationalgeographic.com/video/climate-weather-sci

National Geographic 

This video discusses the differences between climate and weather by defining and presenting examples of each. When presenting examples of weather, the video focuses on severe events and how meteorologists predict and study the weather using measurement, satellites, and radar. The climate focus is primarily on an overview of climate zones.

Video length: 3:22 min.

Background Infomation

  • Climate is the average weather conditions over a long period of time. There are six major climate zones across the globe. Climate is a factor that helps people determine where to live.
  • Weather is the day-to-day conditions of the conditions of Earth's atmosphere. Severe weather events cause billions of dollars in damages to infrastructure. Weather forecasts allow humans to prepare for severe weather events.
  • Meteorologists and scientists use advanced tools to research the atmosphere. These tools include computer models, radar, and satellites.
  • Comments from expert scientist: Clear articulation of the difference between climate and weather.
  • The point is well made that Earth has different climate zones but within each zone, the conditions are highly variable.

Follow Up Activity

The following activity can be used as an assessment tool to gauge student understanding of climate and weather. 


Download: Weather_or_Climate.pdf


References

Weather or Climate? Follow up activity by Cindy Grigg Retrieved from

https://www.mrsd.org/cms/lib/NH01912397/Centricity/Domain/245/weather%20or%20climate%20not%20in%20book.pdf

Remixed from the following activity

https://cleanet.org/resources/42846.html

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