Gallery Walk Questions on Air Pressure and Wind
created by Mark Francek, Central Michigan University
Knowledge
Name the earth's semi-permanent pressure zones.
Comprehension
1. The top of the page represents north. Draw a SW wind. Draw a NE flowing river.
2. Explain how these different local winds originate: land-sea breezes, mountain-valley breezes, katabatic winds, and the regional monsoons.
Application
It's your wedding day and you want blue sky for the pictures. Draw pressure cells on the map that would likely produce a) fair skies, south wind b) clearing skies, northwest wind c) warm, rainy, winds from the south.
Analysis
1. Discuss how surface air pressure would be impacted by air density and temperature.
2. Create a scenario that would modify the following at the global and local scales.
- a) incoming solar radiation
- b) gravity
- c) pressure gradient force
- d) Coriolis force
- e) friction force
Synthesis
1. Write a wind forecast for a location near the equator assuming the earth ceased to rotate and your location is on the side of the earth facing the sun.
2. How is unequal heating of the earth responsible for our predominant wind pattern here in Michigan?
Evaluation
Rank the critical energy and matter transformations necessary to create a west wind.
Visit the introduction to Gallery Walks for more information about using Gallery Walks in your classes.
Learn more about creating questions for Gallery Walk using Bloom's Taxonomy
To see a more fully fleshed out example of a Gallery Walk activity, check out either Weather Map Interpretation or Soil Morphology.
