WEATHERQUEST

A WebQuest designed to make you an expert on weather!

Introduction:  A local television station is launching a new, three-times-a-day news show for kids.  The news will reported to kids, by kids.  Among the jobs they are trying to fill is the local weather reporter.  The weatherperson's job will include reporting the current local weather conditions, as well as conditions in some important places around the world.  The producers of the news show want the weather reporter to be able to explain things to their viewers, not just give the facts.  This means the reporter has to have some basic knowledge about how weather works.

Tasks:  In order to become KKID's local weather reporter, you must satisfy the producers with your knowledge of weather, ability to explain basic ideas regarding weather, and ability to gather and display data.  The producers are also hoping their weather reporter will be able to provide some interesting facts, projects, or other weather-related ideas to their viewers.  Your audition will take place on a video segment in which you do a mock weather report that includes the following:

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	A report on your local weather conditions which explains to the viewers the terms you are talking about as well as giving your local weather conditions and expected weather for the coming hours.
	Display of weather conditions from 10 cities around the world. scatterplot which compares the temperatures to the wind chill or humidity bar graph which depicts some other piece of data such as wind speed, month's precipitation, etc a hand-drawn or computer-drawn picture of the sky condition and precipitation of one of the cities.
	Weather-related entertainment such as a story, folk lore, project, experiment, or trivia.                                                                                                                          Directions for tasks

Starting points:  All the information you need can be found by following these links.  Each of the sites has links of its own, so explore freely.  Just remember to use the BACK button in the upper left hand of your screen to return to WEATHERQUEST.  Or, you can use your History Trail if you have one.  The tasks do not have to be completed in order and you should spend some time looking at each site before you actually begin to gather your data.  

Where to go and what to do
A good place to begin is UNISYS, where you can find your city's current weather conditions. Look carefully at the terms included in the report.  These are the terms you will need to be able to explain to your viewers.  Be careful-- some are abbreviations and you will have to do a little reading at a weather education site to figure out what the abbreviations mean.	Click on the blue underlined words to go to a weather web site
To learn about the weather terms and just how weather works, Dan's Wild, Wild Weather Page is a great place.  The National Weather Service has a lot information at their website, too.  The site Meteorology A to Z has tons of information. All of these sites have links to other interesting places, too!  You can also see a Current Weather Map and learn about the symbols on a weather map.
Weather is not just about data.  There is a lot of interesting stuff about how weather affects us and plays a part of culture!  These sites will show you some fun facts, experiments, proverbs, and stories about weather.           Weather Folk Lore Lesson            Southpole           Weather Eye           Planet Diary           WeatherWorks Weather Songs	(back to top)

Process and Resources:

	Preparing for your "audition video"
	Now that you've explored and become comfortable, you can get down to work.  Remember you have 3 main tasks to do for this audition.
The Weather Report	To find the information for your weather report, go to UNISYS. Scroll down to the search box and type in your city or zip code.  Copy the data onto paper or into a word processing document.  While you're there you might as well get the data for your graphs.(task 2) Use your BACK browser to return to the search box and enter a different city or zip code.  Repeat this until you have collected data for 10 cities.
Teach your viewers this	Return to Wild Dan's, the National Weather Service, Meteorology A to Z, and the Current Weather Maps, or any other site you found to read and learn the terms  and concepts you will need to explain to your viewers.
Have some Weather Fun!	Choose a topic from the weather-interest sites to become an "expert" on and tell your viewers all about it. If you found any other sites, feel free to use them!            Weather Folk Lore Lesson            Southpole           Weather Eye           Planet Diary           WeatherWorks Weather Songs
Need some help with the graphs?	Check out the graph tutorial.                                                (back to top)

Evaluation: Your video will be viewed by the producers (your teachers) and assessed with a checklist.  The more checks you get, the higher your rating!! (go to checklist)

Conclusion:  Weather is a huge part of our lives.  It affects what we wear, the activities we participate in, the crops we can grow, and even whether we can go to school in the morning! Knowing how to predict weather conditions can be extremely helpful for someone of all ages. Now that you have completed WEATHERQUEST, you should have a better idea about what all those big words used by your TV station's meteorologist mean.  Now you can look at the weather map and see the fronts coming.  You know where on the internet to go to find the weather conditions for most any city in the world!  You even learned some experiments or other interesting stuff about weather that you can use to impress your friends and family.

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	WEATHERQUEST was designed by Carolyn Hughes, St. Cecilia School, Columbus, OH
	If you found other good weather sites that I could use as links, I'd love to hear about them! Email me with comments!