Yesterday was a crazy day for our first weather journal! Did you get caught in a thunderstorm?
My weather journal from yesterday is pictured below.
Today's task is to complete a second weather journal entry.
Yours does not have to look exactly like mine. The goal is to get outside and make good, detailed observations. Words and/or pictures are great. Make predictions or ask questions in your journal too. The more detail, the better.
Here are the weather journal guidelines:
Please actually go outside for at least 10-15 minutes.
Record everything you observe about the weather. This could include:
Temperature
Wind speed and direction
Types of clouds you see
If it's raining or sunny or anything in between
Humidity and air pressure
How the weather has changed throughout the day
You are encouraged to use tools and technology.
If your family has a thermometer or barometer, use them to help you record temperature!
Hi 6th graders! Today we're going to learn about meteorologists!
A meteorologist is a scientist who studies weather and uses data to predict weather.
Task 1: Use the video below to check your weather or climate questions from yesterday. Make sure you ask questions if you don't understand. You will need to be able to tell the difference in an upcoming quiz.
Task 2: Watch this video to learn more about what a meteorologist does.
When you look out the window, you’re seeing what the weather is like today.
Weather is only temporary. For example, a blizzard can turn into a flood after just a few warm spring days.
Climate, on the other hand, is more than just a few warm or cool days.
Climate describes the typical weather conditions in an entire region for a very long time—30 years or more.
Keeping an eye on changing weather can help us plan ahead.
We know that if thunderclouds are forming overhead, it’s probably a good idea to stay inside.
But it’s important to keep an eye on changes in Earth’s climate, too. And NASA has observed that Earth is getting warmer.
Keeping track of Earth’s sea level is one way that we can know how quickly the climate is changing. As Earth’s climate warms, ice in Antarctica and Greenland is melting. This causes the level of the oceans to rise.
NASA satellites can measure sea level rise from space.
They can also track changes in the climate by measuring the clouds.
We know that changes in the number, size or location of clouds could be caused by a change in Earth’s climate.
NASA satellites are always orbiting Earth, looking down at our oceans and clouds. And they monitor Earth’s climate in other ways, too.
It’s important to keep an eye on our planet and all the ways that it’s changing. Right now, it’s the only one we’ve got!
See if you can tell the difference between weather and climate. For the following situations:
Write C if it is an example of climate.
Write W if it is an example of weather.
Write N if the example is neither weather nor climate.
_____ 1. It was raining an hour ago and now it’s sunny.
_____ 2. It’s usually snowy in January in Caldwell.
_____ 3. Tomorrow it will be 65 degrees!
_____ 4. I saw five different kinds of clouds in the sky yesterday.
_____ 5. There were five earthquakes last month in the Carolinas.
_____ 6. A tornado hit in Tennessee.
_____ 7. The seasons in the Northern hemisphere are opposite of the Southern
hemisphere.
_____ 8. In winter, the mornings are cold, like 20 degrees.
____ 9. During the Ice Age, the Earth was colder than it is now.
____ 10. It’s raining!
____ 11. It’s not windy enough to fly a kite.
____ 12. It is always hot and dry in the desert in June.
____ 13. There were 12 forest fires in Idaho last year.
____ 14. There was a huge thunderstorm last night.
Please send your weather vs. climate summary and your answers to #1-14 to Ms. Dolan. Answers will be posted tomorrow for you to check your work! adolan@hccs481.org or ms.dolans_science
Earth’s atmosphere has five layers, each with its own characteristics. Moving upward from ground level, these layers are named the troposphere, stratosphere, mesosphere, thermosphere and exosphere. The exosphere gradually fades away into the realm of interplanetary space.
The troposphere is the lowest layer of our atmosphere. Starting at ground level, it extends upward to about 10 km (6.2 miles or about 33,000 feet) above sea level. We humans live in the troposphere, and nearly all weather occurs in this lowest layer. Most clouds appear here, mainly because 99% of the water vapor in the atmosphere is found in the troposphere. Air pressure drops, and temperatures get colder, as you climb higher in the troposphere.
The next layer up is called the stratosphere. The stratosphere extends from the top of the troposphere to about 50 km (31 miles) above the ground. The infamous ozone layer is found within the stratosphere. Ozone molecules in this layer absorb high-energy ultraviolet (UV) light from the Sun, converting the UV energy into heat. This protects us from the dangers of UV radiation- without the stratosphere’s protection the UV rays could harm us!
Unlike the troposphere, the stratosphere actually gets warmer the higher you go! Commercial passenger jets fly in the lower stratosphere, partly because this less-turbulent layer provides a smoother ride. The jet stream flows near the border between the troposphere and the stratosphere.
Above the stratosphere is the mesosphere. It extends upward to a height of about 85 km (53 miles) above our planet. Most meteors burn up in the mesosphere. Unlike the stratosphere, temperatures once again grow colder as you rise up through the mesosphere. The coldest temperatures in Earth’s atmosphere, about -90° C (-130° F), are found near the top of this layer. The air in the mesosphere is far too thin to breathe; air pressure at the bottom of the layer is well below 1% of the pressure at sea level, and continues dropping as you go higher.
The layer of very thin air above the mesosphere is called the thermosphere. High-energy X-rays and UV radiation from the Sun are absorbed in the thermosphere, raising its temperature to hundreds or at times thousands of degrees. However, the air in this layer is so thin that it would feel freezing cold to us! In many ways, the thermosphere is more like outer space than a part of the atmosphere. Many satellites actually orbit Earth within the thermosphere! The aurora, the Northern Lights and Southern Lights, occur in the thermosphere.
Although some experts consider the thermosphere to be the uppermost layer of our atmosphere, others consider the exosphere to be the actual “final frontier” of Earth’s atmosphere. As you might imagine, the “air” in the exosphere is very, very, very thin, making this layer even more space-like than the thermosphere. In fact, air in the exosphere is constantly – though very gradually – “leaking” out of Earth’s atmosphere into outer space. There is no clear-cut upper boundary where the exosphere finally fades away into space. Different definitions place the top of the exosphere somewhere between 100,000 km (62,000 miles) and 190,000 km (120,000 miles) above the surface of Earth. That means the exosphere ends halfway to the Moon!
Sky-Diving from the Stratosphere
In October 2012, an Austrian skydiver named Felix Baumgartner, took a small, balloon-powered capsule 24 miles above Earth's surface into the Stratosphere (Earth's 2nd atmosphere layer). Then he jumped! He was in free-fall for several minutes and actually went supersonic, which means his body was moving as fast as the speed of sound. At its fastest, his body was falling over 800 miles per hour! The video below shows this record-breaking jump.
As you watch, be sure to notice what Earth and sky look like from the stratosphere (it kind of looks like space) and remember that there are more layers of atmosphere above him!
Find a safe and comfortable place to lie on the ground or sit in a chair.
Set a timer for 7 minutes.
Look up and study the sky or the trees or whatever you can see. What do you see? What colors, shapes, objects, or animals do you see? Record your observations. You may use words and/or pictures.
Part 2: Look DOWN!
Find a safe and comfortable place to lie on the ground or sit in a chair. It's also ok to walk or crawl around.
Set a timer for 7 minutes.
Look down and study the soil, plants, insects or whatever you can see. What do you see? What colors, shapes, objects, or animals do you see? Record your observations. You may use words and/or pictures.
There is a note-catcher here that you may use. But you can also create your own.
Have Fun!
Send a picture of your journal (and a picture of you outside if possible) to Ms. Dolan: adolan@hccs481.org ms.dolans_science
Hi 6th graders! Below is a video from Dr. Kaitlin Maguire.
She is a paleontologist at the Orma J. Smith Museum at the College of Idaho. She is the one that loaned us the fossils and would have met with us if we had been able to take a field trip to the museum.
She made a video for you to tell you about her life as a paleontologist and to answer some of the questions you've asked.
Today's Assignment:
After watching the video, please take some time to write a letter thanking Dr. Maguire for taking the time to connect with you. Be sure to include some specific things that you learned from her or that stood out to you. If you have more questions for her you can ask them too!
A letter outline is below to help you.
Please send your letter to Ms. Dolan: adolan@hccs481.org
What was your final guess on what the skeleton from “The Great Fossil Find” was last week?
Did you get something like this?
It was a pterosaur!
(pronounced “ter-a-soar”; the p is silent)
Look carefully at the skeleton above. Here are some things I want you to notice:
1.The backbone is made up of lots of smaller bones called vertebrae.
2. Rib bones are attached to the back bones.
3. The LONG wing bones are actually a very long finger!
4. This pterosaur had really sharp teeth (you can see that better in our skeleton from last week) which tells us that it was a predator that ate other animals.
_______________________________
Go back to your skeleton drawings and hypotheses from last week.
What did you get right? What did you have mixed up?
On any sheet of paper, create two columns and compare/contrast your skeleton with the pterosaur skeleton above:
I was right about:
Some things I mixed up:
________________________________________
Please send a picture of your two column compare/contrast to Ms. Dolan: adolan@hccs481.org
________________________________________
Let's learn more about what paleontologists have figured out about pterosaurs!
