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In this lesson, students will analyze an informational text that addresses a weather data assimilation system for forecasting weather. This lesson is designed to support reading in the content area. The text describes what weather data is used with this system, where it’s coming from, and who can use it. The lesson includes a note-taking guide, text-dependent questions, a writing prompt, answer keys and a writing rubric.

Type: Lesson Plan

This lesson plan is designed to support reading in the content area. In this lesson, students will read a text that describes a study on the climate of the American Southwest. Using 35 years' worth of data, scientists believe a subtle shift in weather patterns is leading to drier conditions in the Southwest. The text goes on to explain the significance of this research and the challenge of connecting drier conditions in the region to climate change. The lesson plan includes text-dependent questions, a writing prompt, sample answers, and a writing rubric.

Type: Lesson Plan

In this activity students will compare El Nino / La Nina Anomaly data and compare the data to hurricane frequency in the Atlantic Basin. The ENSO Anomaly Data has been provided. Students will then research hurricane frequency and compare both data sets. To close the activity, students will need to apply the knowledge learned in the lesson to synthesize and make a prediction in a writing prompt.

Type: Lesson Plan

In this activity, the students plot a real storm in the Atlantic basin using the same models as the National Hurricane Center. Students will compare their predictions of a storms future path to the predictions of the National Hurricane Center models. This exercise can last for as many as 20 days depending on the life of the tropical cyclone.

Type: Lesson Plan

This lesson will give students the ability to understand how fog can affect their lives living in the State of Florida. Students will learn how to properly use a sling psychrometer, how to interpret the measurement results, and how to use this data to predict the occurrence of fog as it relates to transportation. The analysis part of the lesson revolves around the ability to predict the likelihood of fog if the Dew Point is within 5 Degrees F. of the ambient temperature, also in Degrees F.

Type: Lesson Plan

In this lesson students will predict and interpret a weather forecast of a selected area. The students will choose an area and make a two day prediction of the weather for that selected area based upon current weather conditions and models.

Type: Lesson Plan

This is a 9th grade MEA about weather prediction and limitations thereof. This MEA will ask students to work as a team to design a plan to select the source for weather forecasts for a private hot-air balloon tour company. Students will evaluate information from various weather predictions sources to determine which one is best for a hot-air balloon ride company.

Model Eliciting Activities, MEAs, are open-ended, interdisciplinary problem-solving activities that are meant to reveal students’ thinking about the concepts embedded in realistic situations. Click here to learn more about MEAs and how they can transform your classroom.

Type: Lesson Plan

This is a lesson that I developed where students learn how meteorologists predict the weather. Students will use surface weather maps, radar, satellite, and weather models from the National Weather Service to assess the current state of the weather and make a prediction.

Type: Lesson Plan

Jon Ahlquist discusses ensemble forecasting and how technology has allowed us to collect important data for the understanding of weather.

Download the CPALMS Perspectives video student note taking guide.

Type: Perspectives Video: Expert

Jon Ahlquist discusses the various factors in weather predictions and why they are so important to our lives.

Download the CPALMS Perspectives video student note taking guide.

Type: Perspectives Video: Expert

Mark Powell discusses the models used for hurricane predictions and the limitations that exist.

Download the CPALMS Perspectives video student note taking guide.

Type: Perspectives Video: Expert

<p>Entrepreneur and meteorologist Mark Powell discusses the need for statistics in his mathematical modeling program to help better understand hurricanes.</p>

Type: Perspectives Video: Expert

Hurricanes can hit at any time! How do insurance companies use math and weather data to help to restore the community?

Download the CPALMS Perspectives video student note taking guide.

Type: Perspectives Video: Expert

Meteorologist, Michael Kozar, discusses the limitations to existing hurricane scales and how he is helping to develop an improved scale.

Download the CPALMS Perspectives video student note taking guide.

Type: Perspectives Video: Expert

Meteorologist from Risk Management discusses the use of probability in predicting hurricane tracks.

Download the CPALMS Perspectives video student note taking guide.

Type: Perspectives Video: Expert

Major Paul Homan describes the needs and capabilities of the United States Air Force with regard to global weather prediction and modeling. 

Download the CPALMS Perspectives video student note taking guide.

Type: Perspectives Video: Expert

<p>Hear how mathematics helped shape Dr. James O'Brien's groundbreaking research in ocean modeling of El Ni&ntilde;o.</p>

Type: Perspectives Video: Expert

<p>This FSU professor discusses the limitations and need for improvement to models used to forecast hurricanes.</p>

Type: Perspectives Video: Expert

What happens when math models go wrong in forecasting hurricanes?

Download the CPALMS Perspectives video student note taking guide.

Type: Perspectives Video: Professional/Enthusiast

Listen up as a meteorologist explains how weather balloons work and how they collect data for models they can use to make forecasts.

Download the CPALMS Perspectives video student note taking guide.

Type: Perspectives Video: Professional/Enthusiast

This informational text resource is designed to support reading in the content area. This text describes NOAA’s new (established in 2015) weather collecting database system that is able to assimilate weather data from 64,000 different sources. This new system is usable by federal, state and local agencies, universities, and private companies to forecast and prepare for different kinds of weather.

Type: Text Resource

This informational text resource is designed to support reading in the content area. The text describes a study on the climate of the southwestern United States. Using 35 years' worth of data, scientists believe a subtle shift in weather patterns is leading to drier conditions in the Southwest. The text goes on to explain the significance of this research and the challenge of connecting drier conditions in the region to climate change.

Type: Text Resource

This informational text resource is intended to support reading in the content area. Did you know that climate has two not-so-nice children? Meet El Niño and La Niña, the "boy" and "girl" spawned by the global climate every 3-7 years. They can give the world a climate that's quite troublesome, depending on which one is causing the disturbance.

Type: Text Resource

This informational text resource is intended to support reading in the content area. The text explains that changing weather patterns can be linked to a weakening of the jet stream. It is known that the jet stream is responsible for changeable weather patterns, and the weakening of the stream is causing weather conditions to stay in locations for longer periods of time. The article concludes that the fuel source of the jet stream (the differences in temperature between the tropics and the arctic) is becoming less dramatic, which in turn is weakening the winds.

Type: Text Resource

This informational text resource is intended to support reading in the content area. This article focuses on the technology used by NASA for its most recent research being conducted on hurricanes. It describes the technology used as well as the data that is collected. It is an excellent article for explaining how scientists "know what they know" about weather.

Type: Text Resource

This informational text is intended to support reading in the content area. This text describes the devastation that Superstorm Sandy caused and why there was so much destruction in the areas affected, especially New Jersey and New York. The author delves into areas such as floods, hurricane prediction, and methods that may prevent such destruction from happening again.

Type: Text Resource

This informational text resource is intended to support reading in the content area. The purpose of this text is to explain how a conceptual model for snowfall in the Arctic is useful in explaining how snow falls for days on end in relatively clean atmospheric conditions.

Type: Text Resource

This informational text resource is intended to support reading in the content area. Pollution can cause thunderstorms to leave behind larger, deeper, and longer lasting clouds. This may have important effects on climate change.

Type: Text Resource

A web mapping portal with real-time observations. This National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration site allows teachers and students to use tools to generate maps, establish relationships between maps and databases, and learn the utility of Geographic Information Systems (GIS).

Type: Virtual Manipulative