Education

Lesson Plan: Weather Observation and Analysis

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Subject Area: Computer Applications, Applying Information Technology

Grade Level: 5

Goal: Teach the seasonal impact on environment around us by observing, monitoring, and recording weather changes from day to day and across two seasons (fall, and winter). Data will be kept from year to year. The culminating project which will be completed at by the end of the school year is the creation of a weather analysis report for the entire school district which is based on data the students learned to gather and interpret. The students at the end of the term will also give a presentation to their peers, family members and administration of the school district.

The students will develop the following computer application skills:

• Enter data in a spreadsheet.

• Develop equations to calculate the average daily temperature.

• Be able to display the temperatures in Centigrade or Fahrenheit.

• Log and enter equations that toggle between each entry.

• Display the results in a graphical fashion or in either a line graph or as a bar chart.

• More elaborate display and data aggregation is possible if the students had the background in previous years of schooling.

Thus, a blend of computer skills, math and science will be achieved in this lesson. The computer skills acquired was just described above. The math skills focus on in the form of data collection methods, averaging of data, comparing data over time and over large intervals is an important skill that students can develop. In fact, the smarter student may begin to develop patterns from data.

In addition, the science skills the student learns would focus on learning about temperatures and what temperature is. They will learn about temperature scales, and conversion between them. The notion of seasons is taught, and the student is challenged to start thinking about how and what cause seasons to happen and...