Teacher Notes
This page lists all teacher notes for this lesson. Individual notes can be accessed on the main Teacher Notes page.
Introduction (10-15 minutes)
Students will start to think about how severe weather affects people's lives in this activity. After students watch the featured animation and read the text, introduce them to their Engineering Portfolios. Let them know that they will be using these portfolios to investigate severe weather and its effects on homes. Eventually, they will use what they have learned to develop solutions to protect homes from severe weather.
Make sure students understand the meaning of severe weather: very strong or powerful weather. Allow them to verbally share their experiences with a severe weather event or an instance where weather affected their plans. For students who have never experienced severe weather, ask them to share what they know about severe weather and how they might react if they were to experience a severe weather event. This will help them generate ideas for a writing prompt in the next activity. (For a hands-on extension activity, see Appendix F.)
Standards Addressed:
SL.3.1,
SL.3.3,
SL.3.4,
SL3.6
Severe Weather (45 minutes)
Before beginning, make sure that each student has a copy of the Engineering Portfolio. After students have explored this page, have them turn to pages 1 and 2 in their portfolios. The first page asks them to complete a pre-writing graphic organizer for a personal weather narrative. The second page gives instructions for writing the narrative.
For students who have not experienced a severe weather event, have them turn to the alternative assignment on pages 3 and 4. Students will write a narrative about a real-life or imagined experience with severe weather. Remind students to use descriptive details and a clear event sequence. Students should also take care to show the actions, thoughts and feelings of any people in the narrative, including themselves. Students may voice-record their entries, use speech-to-text technology or type their entries, if possible. Allow students 15 minutes to complete the pre-writing exercise. Allow 30 minutes for students to complete the narrative.
After they are finished, allow students to share their narratives with their classmates. This activity will help students to recall prior knowledge that will help them to make personal connections with the concept of severe weather.
Standards Addressed:
SL.3.4,
W.3.3
Weather Brainstorm (30-45 minutes)
This activity serves as an opportunity for students to think about what they already know about weather.
Before your class begins the activity on this page, divide children into STEM teams of about 4 students each. (See Appendix C of the Teacher's Guide for more information on forming STEM teams.) Next, have students turn to pages 5 and 6 of their Engineering Portfolios.
Page 5 contains the Weather Brainstorm Tool. Students will use this tool in their groups to help them brainstorm and organize their ideas and prior knowledge about weather. If you have not used a graphic organizer like the Weather Brainstorm Tool with your class before, demonstrate how to brainstorm ideas and connect related ideas with arrows. Note that each student should complete his/her individual portfolio pages, although students will be brainstorming, discussing their ideas as a team, and working on their pages together.
If your school has the
Kidspiration
or
Pixie 3
software, you may wish to have students complete their graphic organizers online.
When students are done brainstorming, ask teams to turn to page 6. This page asks them to discuss the essential question "What is severe weather?" Students should decide as a group what qualifies as "severe" and "not severe" weather. After students have responded to the questions, have them watch the slideshow and classify the weather they see as "severe" or "not severe" according to their definitions. They will complete the “What is Severe Weather” chart on page 7 in their portfolios. When groups are finished, have them share their work with the class.
Answer Key for “What Is Severe Weather” chart:
|
Severe Weather |
Not Severe Weather |
|---|---|
|
Hurricane |
Rain shower |
|
Blizzard |
85 degrees |
|
Tornado |
ﾠ |
|
Excessive Rain |
ﾠ |
|
Heat wave |
ﾠ |
ﾠ
Standards Addressed:
3.B.1.b,
3.B.1.d
Impacts of Severe Weather (20 minutes)
Students will continue to work in their STEM teams in this activity, looking at images of homes affected by severe weather and recording the impacts of severe weather. Before the activity begins, have students turn to page 8 in their Engineering Portfolios (the Cause and Effect Chart). Ask students to continue to work in groups to complete the worksheet. They should list types of weather in the left column and record the potential effects on structures in the right column. You may want to complete one example with the class before they work in their teams. [i.e. Cause: excessive rain; Effect: flood damage] Be aware that some students may live in mobile homes and could become especially alarmed by the possibility of a tornado or hurricane lifting their homes.
Standards Addressed:
3.B.1.b,
3.B.1.d
Explore Severe Weather (45 minutes)
In this activity, students will explore different websites to learn more about severe weather events. Assist them as they continue their exploration, and encourage them to add to their Cause and Effect Charts if they would like. Have multiple copies of the chart available for students if needed. Students may work individually or in groups for this activity.
Standards Addressed:
RI.3.1,
RI.3.5,
RI.3.7,
W.3.7,
MTLSS 3.A.1
Maryland Weather (30-35 minutes)
This activity provides real Maryland weather data collected between 2002 and 2012.
Before the activity begins, have students turn to page 9 of their Engineering Portfolios and ask the class to work individually to investigate the data they see. After students have had a chance to look at the data on their own for a few minutes, facilitate a discussion about weather in Maryland. Discuss the terms pattern and trend and ask your students if they see any patterns or trends in the data provided. Some patterns they may notice are that Maryland has experienced at least two heat waves every year; Maryland experiences fewer hurricanes and major snowstorms, with 0-3 every year; and tornadoes are the most variable severe weather event, with anywhere from 0-27 per year.
Chart Answer Key:
|
ﾠ |
2002 |
2003 |
2004 |
2005 |
2006 |
2007 |
2008 |
2009 |
2010 |
2011 |
2012 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Tornadoes |
14 |
10 |
20 |
0 |
3 |
2 |
8 |
10 |
4 |
27 |
15 |
|
Days of Flooding |
0 |
4 |
0 |
2 |
0 |
0 |
1 |
0 |
5 |
7 |
1 |
|
Major Snowstorms |
0 |
1 |
0 |
0 |
1 |
0 |
0 |
1 |
2 |
0 |
0 |
|
Hurricanes / Tropical Storms |
0 |
1 |
3 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
1 |
0 |
0 |
1 |
1 |
|
Heat Waves |
6 |
2 |
2 |
5 |
6 |
9 |
5 |
3 |
13 |
5 |
6 |
|
Total |
20 |
18 |
25 |
7 |
10 |
11 |
15 |
14 |
24 |
40 |
23 |
Data courtesy of Maryland State Climatologist Office
If students need more information about the data, explain the following:
Major snowstorms are defined as those that brought at least 10 inches of snow across the majority of Maryland. Hurricane/tropical storm numbers represent storms named by the National Hurricane Center that continued to retain tropical characteristics when they reached Maryland, with a combination ofﾠsustained broad scale strong winds, heavy rain and storm surge. Heat waves are defined as a stretch of at least three days with temperatures above 90 degrees Fahrenheit. Flooding data represents days above flood stage from USGS flood gages on the Potomac River.
Standards Addressed:
3-ESS2-1,
3.OA.9
Graphing Maryland Weather (30-40 minutes)
Before the activity begins, have students turn to page 10 of their Engineering Portfolios. Students will use the weather data from their charts to create a bar graph in their Engineering Portfolios. They will choose the type of severe weather event that they are most interested in, and they will use data from the chart to create a bar graph that shows how frequently this type of weather occurred from 2002-2012.
You may offer students the option of creating their bar graphs online using the graphing tool on
Kids' Zone
. If you choose this option, be sure to visit the site in advance so that you may better assist students.
Review the parts of a bar graph with students before they begin. They should use the x-axis to indicate the year, and the y-axis to indicate the frequency of the severe weather event they chose. Remind students to consider the range of data they will need to graph when deciding on the scale of their graphs. (If students choose to graph tornadoes, for instance, they will need to ensure that their y-axis will allow them to graph up to 27 tornado events.) Encourage students to represent more than one value per grid square—for instance, one square equals two data points so the y-axis values increase by 2s.When they are finished, encourage them to share and compare their graphs with other students.
For students who would like an extra challenge, suggest that they create a graph showing the total number of severe weather events for each year. Alternatively, they could choose one year and compare the frequency of different weather events in that year.
When they have finished, have your students explore the "Did You Know?" section in the sidebar to learn about technology used to collect weather data. Explain to your students that once meteorologists have this data, they can use it to predict what the weather will be like in the future.
Standards Addressed:
3-ESS2-1,
3.MD.3,
MTLSS 3.A.1
Weather and Climate (40-45 minutes)
Students will use their bar graphs to respond to questions in their Engineering Portfolios in this activity. Begin the activity by having students turn to page 11 of their Engineering Portfolios. After students have answered the questions, ask them to share their ideas with the class. It may be difficult for students to discern any trends over ten years, but emphasize that scientists who have looked at data over a much longer time period have found evidence that the climate is changing, and that severe weather events are becoming more common.
After students complete and discuss the questions on page 11 of their portfolios, take a moment to complete a Venn Diagram to compare and contrast climate and weather. Conduct this activity as a whole class by drawing a Venn Diagram on a board or poster paper. Have students share how the two terms are the same and different, and record their responses on the chart.
Next, open up a discussion about climate change, and make sure that students understand the difference between weather and climate. Students may have heard conflicting information about climate change, or they may not be familiar with the term. Have them watch the video in the Did You Know? sidebar to get some background knowledge. After the video is over, help explain any ideas or terms that they have questions about. Reiterate that global climate change is causing an increase in severe weather events like hurricanes and flooding.
Standards Addressed:
3-ESS2-1
Protecting Homes From Severe Weather (25-30 minutes)
In this activity, students watch a slideshow that shows how different types of severe weather can impact homes and what people can do to weatherproof. Before students begin, have them turn to page 12 of their Engineering Portfolios and encourage them to take notes on the slideshow. You may need to scaffold the note-taking process. They will need to refer to their notes later. Remember to be extra sensitive towards those students who may have experienced a loss due to severe weather.
Standards Addressed:
3.D.1.a,
3.B.1.b,
3.B.1.d,
RI.3.7,
MTLSS 3.A.1
Protect a Home (30-40 minutes)
Students will work in their STEM teams in this activity to choose a kind of home and a type of severe weather. Using an online design tool, they will make modifications that will enable the home to stand up to severe weather. They will submit their design through the online activity and see what happens to their home during a simulation of the severe weather event they chose. If students' designs do not pass the severe weather test, they will be able to go back and make changes to their design. Note that students may work as a team at one computer station, or students may work at individual computers, inputting information that was decided upon as a team.
Before the class begins, have students turn to pages 13-15 of their Engineering Portfolios and go over the steps of the engineering design process with your class. (A graphic of the engineering design process is provided in Appendix B.) Throughout the lesson, help students work cooperatively in their STEM teams. If they need help, encourage them to refer back to the work they have already completed in their Engineering Portfolios. When each group has submitted a successful design, have groups share their experiences and their final design with the class.
Standards Addressed:
3-ESS3-1,
3.D.1.a,
Engineering Design Process
Weatherproof Your Home (20-30 minutes)
This activity contains the Weatherproofing Tool. Before looking at the tool as a group, discuss the term weatherproofing to make sure students understand it means adding or changing materials in and around your home to help protect it against weather.
Next, assist students as they navigate the tool and work as a team. Students may take turns inputting information into the tool if the whole team is working at one computer station, or choose one person in the team to input information into the tool as other students dictate. Alternatively, students may work at individual computers, inputting the information that they decided upon as a team.
Some students may wonder why they cannot choose a tornado as a severe weather event in the tool. Let them know that unless a home is passed over directly by a tornado, it may experience strong winds and rain similar to a hurricane.
Once students have completed the tool, instruct them to move on to the next page of the website.
Answer key for appropriate weatherproofing materials:
|
ﾠ |
Hurricane |
Blizzard |
Excessive Rain |
Heat Wave |
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Mobile Home |
Tie and anchor systems
|
Insulation
|
Caulk
|
Insulation
|
|
Townhome |
Wooden boards
|
Insulation
|
Caulk
|
Insulation
|
|
Single-family home |
Wooden boards
|
Insulation
|
Caulk
|
Insulation
|
|
Apartment Building |
Wooden boards
|
Insulation
|
Caulk
|
Insulation
|
Standards Addressed:
3-ESS3-1,
3.D.1.a,
MTLSS 3.B.1
Final Project (45 minutes)
The final project is a written assignment that gives students a chance to show what they have learned over the course of the lesson. Go over the three writing assignments and review the rubrics with students before they begin. The projects are online and on page 16 of students' Engineering Portfolios. Students should choose one of the assignments to complete. As they write, encourage students to refer back to information they recorded in their Engineering Portfolios. You may also consider setting up an outline together to help guide their writing process.
Rubric for Question 1: Students should mention at least three severe weather events that occur in Maryland. For each event, they should suggest 2 weatherproofing actions or materials that will protect a home. Total possible points: 10.
Rubric for Question 2: Students should give 2-3 examples of potential hurricane damage. They should also recommend at least 3 weatherproofing actions or materials to protect Sandra's home from weather damage. Total possible points: 10.
Rubric for Question 3: Students should mention at least three possible severe weather events. For each of these events, they should recommend 2 weatherproofing materials or actions that can protect a home. Total possible points: 10.
Teachers may assign 2 points per required item in each rubric.
Standards Addressed:
W.3.1,
W.3.3,
3-ESS3-1,
3.D.1.a,
MTLSS 3.B.1
