RESOURCES: EDUCATION BY AGE LEVEL
Middle School Level
Making Lightning: In Your Mouth! This experiment from CoCoRaHS demonstrates how lightning is created. Students are able to create "lightning in their mouth" by biting into a wintergreen lifesaver. (pdf)
The Water Cycle from NOAA This educational webpage from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) highlights the Earth's water cycle by providing background information, links to multimedia resources, lessons and activities, real world data, and career profiles.
Exploring the Water Cycle A lesson plan for grade 6-8 teachers and students where students will learn about the water cycle and how energy from the sun and the force of gravity drive this cycle.
Hurricanes 1: The Science of Hurricanes This 1st hurricane lesson plan from Advancing Science, Serving Society (AAAS) provides students the opportunity to examine different scientific aspects of hurricanes, all in an effort to begin to understand the nature of motion - particularly how changes in speed or direction of motion are caused by forces.
Hurricanes 2: Tracking Hurricanes This 2nd hurricane lesson plan from Advancing Science, Serving Society (AAAS) allows students to explore how technology and science are used today to identify, measure, and track powerful tropical storms to better warn and secure people from their often-devastating impact.
Hurricane! This lesson plan from Discovery Education provides 6th to 8th graders with information on the effects of differing wind speeds and water depth on wave heights during hurricanes and tropical storms.
The Changing Climate: Climate Projections In this lesson from the Peggy Notebaert Museum in Chicago, IL, students will create a classroom web to show how living processes, non-living things, earth processes, and economics can be affected by changes in climate. Students will also work in groups to classify their ideas about how climate change will affect the Chicago area. (pdf)
Middle to High School Level
Activities for Conceptualizing Climate and Climate Change This website hosted by Purdue University provides a list of teacher lesson plans and student resources for grade 7-12 teachers and students with a goal to explore the complex interface between science and society that forms the basis of management decisions related to climate change issues.
Understanding Climate Change The University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR) provides "a global warming primer" on this webpage, which has information like short audio pieces and text that provide quick answers to basic global warming questions, or a frequently asked questions page.
Altering Climate: Basic Climatology A Power Point resource from the Oklahoma Climatological Survey, which provides climate change information like atmospheric pollutants, the controls of climate, and climate change projections (with a slight emphasis on Oklahoma). (pdf)
The Climate Challenge: Our Choices This simple climate model allows students to see the effects of future trends in CO2 emissions on the global climate.
Carbon Cycle Video Animation This short video animation from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) illustrates the different stages of the carbon cycle.
El Niño / La Niña Education Resources This webpage from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) provides links to various educational websites from various programs for El Niño and La Niña, including websites focused on kids.
Albedo Lesson This experiment from the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) allows students to observe the effects of Albedo on the earth's surface temperature. Students are then asked to predict the effect of melting ice on the surface albedo, and how this effects global climate change. (pdf)
Climate 101 Workshops To address a growing need for climate information, the Oklahoma Climatological Survey developed a one-day "climate workshop". This webpage provides links to the topics covered in this workshop, along with PDF and Power Point versions of the lessons.
Be a Weather and Climate Watcher This activity, provided by the Midwestern Regional Climate Center (MRCC), provides guidelines for a weather observing activity where students are given the task of measuring and recording daily weather observations. Over time, this activity will allow students to gain a better understanding of their local climate, and how seasonal averages change through the duration of the activity. (pdf)
Fun with Rainfall Measurements This activity from the Community Collaborative Rain, Hail, and Snow Network (CoCoRaHS) and the Colorado State University Extension provides instructions for a fun activity that gives students the chance to take and record measurements using a rain gauge.
CoCoRaHS for Schools Teachers and students are given the opportunity to become official CoCoRaHS observers, with the duty to record and report daily weather observations to CoCoRaHS where it will be stored in a large data base and possibly used in future scientific research.
Cloud Types and Formation of Clouds This activity from CoCoRaHS and Colorado State University Extension is an ongoing project where participants photograph, observe, and identify clouds compiling a scrapbook. Upon completion of this project/activity, participants will have an understanding of cloud types and the weather associated with them, use of technology to record clouds, and a better understanding of clouds. (pdf)
Tornadoes 101 Video A video from National Geographic (2 minutes, 46 seconds) that discusses how tornadoes form and how to get out of their way.
Weather WizKids: Tornadoes This webpage on tornadoes from Weather WizKids is geared toward a younger audience and includes basic tornado information. At the bottom of the page, some tornado activities are also highlighted.