Unit 4: Are You Prepared for Severe Weather?

Summary

While investigating how our campus/community can be prepared for severe weather events, students research different types of weather stations, design their own personal weather station, and formulate a plan to set up their own monitoring device for their campus/community. Data from local weather monitoring will be used to refine Excel/Google Sheets skills, identify patterns, and make connections between local weather monitoring and national weather forecasting. Students become experts in a particular forecasting data type and use past data sets to analyze and predict severe weather forecasts (mid-latitude cyclones, fires, etc.). Once foundational knowledge of severe weather events has been established, campus/community preparedness for severe weather is assessed and recommendations to prepare for the next severe weather event are made and presented.

Motivating question:

How can our campus/community be prepared for severe weather events?

Time Needed:

The activities in this unit are designed to take place over the course of ten 85-minute class periods.

Prerequisite Skills Needed:

No meteorological knowledge is needed before starting this unit. If not completing Unit 1.1: What is science and what do scientists do? before this Unit (Unit 4), it is recommended that students are able to analyze and interpret visual and graphical data sets.

Learning Outcomes

At the end of the unit, students will be able to:

1. Use engineering design to develop a plan to monitor daily weather conditions on campus
2. Collect weather data to make comparisons with data from a local weather station
3. Use Excel/Google Sheets to graph and analyze data
4. Analyze meteorological data for severe weather to make a claim about the conditions that cause these weather phenomena
5. Assess the campus preparedness for severe weather and develop a plan for making the campus more prepared for that particular type of severe weather
6. Create a model that explains why hurricane damage has increased over time

Overview

Throughout Unit 4, students use science and engineering practices to better prepare their campuses for localized severe weather. They start their investigation by asking questions, making observations, and collecting data to analyze current local weather and current campus preparedness. They develop and use models when constructing a personal weather monitoring device and when explaining changes in hurricane damage over time. They use mathematical and computational thinking when comparing collected data to historical data. Upon completion of Unit 4, students will have the ability to make informed decisions regarding local and severe weather.

Unit 4.1: How to become a weather spotter. How is weather monitored and used to create forecasts? In this unit, the basics of local monitoring techniques are researched to infer how local monitoring supports the overall method of weather forecasting. Each team is tasked with getting the college ready to become a National Weather Spotter. Teams must take constraints into consideration and determine the best way to monitor and report their assigned data to generate a plan for implementation. Throughout this activity, students work in teams to problem-solve, use engineering design to construct a plan to create a personal weather monitoring device, and communicate the results of scientific investigations. At the end of Unit 4.1, students have the option to build a classroom weather monitoring device which they will use in Unit 4.2.

Unit 4.2: Exploring the outdoors. How do clouds form? Do they have any impact on the weather? The majority of Unit 4.2 takes place outside the classroom, as students engage in weather data collection for a practical, hands-on learning experience. Connections between the weather and the environment are made through atmospheric observations and recording data from sling psychrometers, anemometers, and temperature and humidity data loggers. Additionally, cloud formation will be modeled and visualized by completing a hands-on 'cloud in a bottle' demonstration.

Unit 4.3: Identifying patterns and making connections. Has weather data changed over time? Unit 4.3 is geared toward analyzing and interpreting recorded past and present weather data to denote the similarities and differences over time. In Unit 4.3, students act as meteorologists, practice using Excel/Google Sheets to compare past and present weather conditions, and plot and compare data to photographic evidence and U.S. Daily Climate Normals. Students work in teams to collect and analyze data from a local weather station to problem-solve and communicate the results of scientific investigations.

Unit 4.4: Expertise at your fingertips. Where is severe weather happening? In groups, students obtain and evaluate data for an assigned severe weather phenomenon and communicate information via a presentation. They will review national data sets, formulate questions, define problems, and plan and carry out investigations to answer the questions they propose. Additionally, they will be able to explain the importance of weather monitoring at the local and national levels by researching how severe weather has impacted and continues to impact humans. Students will make connections between science and society by researching and reporting on a current event surrounding their topic. They evaluate current engineering designs/techniques used to mitigate severe weather impacts on humans and make recommendations to mitigate future damage from severe weather events.

Unit 4.5: It's all connected, right? How do we use data to develop weather forecasts? In Unit 4.5, a baseline for conditions that are necessary for severe weather (mid-latitude cyclones and fires) to form is established through research. Students analyze different types of national weather data to formulate warnings, advisories, outlooks, and general forecasts for weather. After weather forecasts are developed in class using real data, students engage in argument from evidence on what causes severe weather in particular areas, come to a conclusion on which type(s) of severe weather affects their campus the most, and develop a plan for making the campus more prepared for that particular type of severe weather.

Unit 4.6: Are Hurricanes causing more damage now? In Unit 4.6, students are introduced to ways that hurricanes cause damage, and how hurricane damage has changed throughout the recorded history of hurricanes in the USA. Students make connections between geographical locations and hurricane damage, and consider how human infrastructure and environmental justice impact hurricane risks.

Unit 4.7: How does climate change affect hurricanes? Unit 4.7 asks students to make connections between current climate change trends and the amount and types of damage caused by hurricanes. Students will start by investigating some of the factors that control where and how hurricanes form and intensify. They will then use an online data portal to graph how some of these factors have changed over time, and predict how those changes will affect hurricane formation. Unit 4.7 is meant to follow the previous module on hurricane damage.