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Lesson Plan: Analyzing Weather Maps
Subject: Earth and Space / Meteorology / Weather prediction
Classtime:
Total:8 class periods (30 minutes) and 1 class period (50 minutes)

  • 2 (data collecting sessions day 1)
  • 2 (data collecting sessions day 2)
  • 2 (data collecting sessions day 3)
  • 2 (data collecting sessions day 4)
  • 1 (session interpreting data day 5)
This activity will involve collecting data at least twice a day for four days. The map chosen for this activity is updated every three hours. Topics to be addressed either through discussions or activities in class when data is not being collected from the Internet include: heating of the earth, air pressure, winds, cloud formation, fronts, and weather station models. The fifth day will involve animating the weather map images and summarizing relationships. The summaries will include why the relationships exist.

Grade Level: 7-12

Materials/Technology:

  • computer with Internet access
  • color printer to make overhead transparencies
  • Graphic Converter or other program to save images as TIFF
  • NIH Image 1.61
  • ClarisWorks or other word processing program
  • worksheet to record information
  • United States map with cities clearly labeled

Safety, Handling, Disposal:
Close supervision is strongly recommended when students are conducting searches on the Internet. Inappropriate sites are easy to access either by mistake or on purpose.

Learner Outcomes:
Students should be able to:

  • Use the Internet for educational purposes.
  • Locate places on the Internet using URL's and set bookmarks.
  • Save images from off the Internet and convert them to TIFF.
  • Copy and paste information into a ClarisWorks document.
  • Use NIH Image to animate a stack of weather maps.
  • Record data.
  • Analyze data and make conclusions concerning:
    • Relationship between precipitation and fronts.
    • Relationship between weather in front of and behind a front.
    • Relationship between cloud cover and highs and lows.
    • Relationship between wind speed and spacing of isobars.
    • General movement of fronts across the U.S.
  • Make conclusions concerning why these patterns exist.

Problem/Purpose:
Analyze weather maps to discover relationships that exist.

Background/Inquiry:

This activity is intended for a class studying meteorology. It will help students determine relationships among precipitation and fronts; weather occurring before and after a front; cloud cover and high and low temperature; wind speed and spacing of isobars; and general movement of fronts across the U.S. It will also introduce them to Netscape Navigator; show them how to save images off the Internet and convert them to TIFF using Graphic Converter; give them practice copying and pasting into a ClarisWorks document; and teach them how to animate a series of images using NIH Image. Students will analyze data on weather maps, make predictions and check the accuracy of their predictions. Once the patterns are determined, the students will be asked to determine why these relationships exist.

This activity will involve collecting data at least twice a day for four days. The weather map chosen for this activity is updated every three hours. The fifth day will involve animating the weather map images and summarizing relationships. The summaries will include why the relationships exist.

Teaching notes from the author:

This activity is designed to take five days to complete with four of them dedicated to acquiring data from the Internet. Examples of activities and discussions for students when they are not acquiring data include: collecting weather data outside the classroom using various weather instruments; studying how cloud formations are affected by changes in temperature; and discussions on wind belts and fronts. The author suggests spending time the first day introducing the students to weather sites on the Internet. Suggested site: NBC News Intellicast at http://www.intellicast.com/ and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) at http://www.noaa.gov.

Background Reading:

Seventh grade textbook: Exploring Earth Science, by Anthea Maton and others (Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 1995), pages 485-508.

*Note: An alternative reading resource could be chosen by the instructor with information concerning: heating the earth, air pressure, winds, moisture in the air, and fronts.

Vocabulary List: Here.

Hypothesis:
N/A

Procedure:

Advance Teacher Preparation:

  • Familiarization with copying and manipulation of images.
  • Create a folder on the desktop for teacher demonstration, entitled United States Weather. Create two folders inside this one entitled U.S. Maps and U.S. City Current Info. Students will be creating similar folders on the computer.
  • Locate United States map with cities listed.
  • Duplicate the Worksheet for Analyzing Weather Maps for the students to use to record data.

Procedure:

  1. Class will be instructed how to open Netscape Navigator and use URL's.
  2. This URL is for The Weather Channel: http://www.weather.com/maps/activity/achesandpains/uscurrentweather_large.html. This is a weather map of the United States showing highs, lows, isobars, fronts, and precipitation. Images will be saved by first clicking on image. Highlight and save this image in the U.S. Maps folder by time and date (Map 14:00 12/10). Study map symbols and information presented. Class should discuss symbols on the map and what they mean. Pick at least 7 different cities each with one of these characteristics: location where the H is on the map, location where the L is on the map, location on the frontal boundary, location to the right of the front, location to the left of the front, location where isobars are close together, and location where isobars are far apart. In the chart provided, record name of city and why it was chosen.
  3. Go to: http://www.weather.com/common/welcomepage/local.html?from=globalnav. Put in name of city to get the current weather information. Record information on worksheet provided for this activity. Highlight information on time, date, cloud cover, wind direction, wind speed, relative humidity, and barometric pressure. Copy to clipboard. Open ClarisWorks and paste in the ClarisWorks document. Go back to cities and repeat procedure for each of the cities identified above. Paste all of them into the same document. Save in U.S. City Current Info folder by time and date (Forecast 14:00 12/10).
  4. Close Netscape Navigator. Students need to convert map image to a TIFF. Open Graphic Converter 2.9.1 (shareware). Go to File-Open. Open: United States Weather folder and U.S. Maps folder. Save as TIFF. Print image to color printer. Make a color overhead transparency. Close U.S. Maps folder. Open the U.S. City Current Info folder and print copy of the current information for the image just printed so it may be used by other classes.
  5. Students may now look at the transparency and compare the data at the various locations with the weather map. They need to look for relationships of the nature listed at the beginning of this extension and write down some hypotheses on the worksheet. Subsequent days will allow students the opportunity to evaluate their hypotheses.
  6. Steps 2-5 need to be completed two times a day for four consecutive days. This will allow students to look for and follow weather patterns across the United States to see what happens over a short period of time. This will also provide eight images for the students to animate.
  7. On the fifth day students will animate the U.S. Maps they saved. Open: NIH Image. Open: U.S. Maps folder. Select the Open option in the dialog box and select Open All. Select Windows to stack in the Stack menu. Select Animate from the Stack menu. The numbers 1-9 at the top of the keyboard control the speed of the animation. Students need to write down the direction the fronts seem to travel across the United States. Do not have the students save the animation.
  8. Students will write a paragraph summarizing each of the results they obtained from studying the information gathered in this activity. Each paragraph will include why the relationships exist and will be based on information gained through the reading, activities and class discussions.

Results/Analysis:
Collect student reports and map animations.

Conclusions:
N/A

Assessments: (if included)

Integration: (if included)

Reflections:
Share your thoughts on this lesson with the NTEN team.

Please send an e-mail to Patti Harrison.

Extensions: (if included)

References/Resources: (if included)

Credits
Contributing Teacher: Patty Flowers
NTEN Course: K-12 Earth Science
Instructor: Jerry Nelson
Assistant Instructor: Bill Ochs
Developing Team:
T.L. Buck Buchanan, Cathy Hensel, Patti Harrison, John Usher, Don Wilson
HTML Programmers: Christy Cousineau, John Usher, Ching-Kwong Chia

Copyright © 1998 - 2002, National Teachers Enhancement Network
Comments: pattih@montana.edu

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