Weather or Not

It’s a bird, it’s a plane, it’s… Mr. Scott, our third grade teacher, up on the roof changing the batteries for the newly installed anemometer! 

Science and curiosity go hand in hand. When students got curious about wind during the third grade weather unit, they built wind gauges out of a wood block, some straws and a piece of paper. 

“Honestly, they didn’t work very well,” said Mr. Scott. Also, it wasn’t possible to measure wind speed with these hand-made devices. “We thought this was important and we didn’t have a way of doing it.”

And so, Mr. Scott mounted a mini weather station, complete with an anemometer, right on top of the third grade classroom. The anemometer measures wind speed and direction, and the other components of the weather station include a rain gauge and sensors that measure relative humidity and temperature. 

Having real data at their fingertips has helped students learn more about how scientists make forecasts. They were alarmed when weather forecasts predicted local flash floods two weeks out. But when the day came, it was perfectly still without a drop of rain. 

 “We’re learning why time has a big impact on the accuracy of forecasts, and how to make good decisions based on the quality of the data and when it was collected.” 

Third graders will keep an eye on the weather as they transition out of the weather unit and into their next unit, the water cycle. In California, the water we use locally comes from snow pack up in the mountains, local groundwater, and, of course, rain. Having a rain gauge—on the roof no less!—will reinforce how, when and how much water enters the system at this time of year.