Backyard Weather Lessons
Fun Projects in Environmental Science for Kids
Teach your children about our earth and its atmosphere with backyard weather lessons.
Weather affects us all, regardless of our age or circumstances. Children are never too young to take an interest in weather; in fact weather makes a fascinating science lesson. You can teach your children weather lessons in your own backyard.
Weather and climate make good science experiments for students of all ages.
Natural Weather Predictors
Before The Weather Channel and weather.com, people still knew what weather to expect by using natural weather predictors.
Take your children outside and see if they can find any clues as to what weather is coming. It is believed that birds fly lower to the ground, and birds and butterflies disappear from their flower-bed hang-outs when rain is on the way.
The Scarlet Pimpernel, Morning Glory and South African Magic Carpet flowers can be looked to for signs of rain. Their flowers are open in sunny weather, but close tightly when rain is expected.
Farmers look to their cows for signs of rain. When cows lie down in the field, it sometimes means they sense moisture in the air and are staking out a dry place to lie down before the rains come.
Observe any weather indicators you see and then wait to see if they’re correct.
Measure Rainfall
Ever wonder how a meteorologist knows how much rain has fallen? You can make your own rainfall gauge and match up your findings with the weather report on TV or in the newspaper.
Cut the top off of a 2-liter soft drink bottle. Turn the top upside down so that it resembles a funnel and place it in the top of the bottle. Using a ruler and a permanent marker, make a scale (in inches or millimeters) on the side of the bottle. To keep your rain gauge from falling over, place it inside a heavy flower pot or an old cooking pot. Place your rain gauge in an open area, away from overhangs or trees so raindrops can fall directly into it.
Check your rain gauge daily or weekly for the amount of rainfall and record your findings.
Make a Simple Windsock
You can observe the direction the wind is blowing and generally how strong it is with a simple windsock craft.
Cut sheet of poster board into a rectangle the size of your choosing. Your child can decorate it with crayons, markers and stickers. Form the poster board into a tube by connecting the two long ends and taping them together.
Cut crepe paper streamers and attach them to the bottom of the tube with tape on the inside of the tube. Punch two holes in the top of the tube and tie a string between them. Hang your windsock from your porch or from a tree branch.
Heavy winds will make your windsock whip around in circles. Light winds will blow it in the direction the wind is moving.
Measuring the Power of the Sun
The sun is an awesome source of heat and light. Demonstrate the power of the sun by finding a spot of driveway or sidewalk that is partially in the sun and partially in the shade. Take a wet sponge and wipe it across both the shady area and the sunny area. Which one dries faster? Feel both sides with the palm of your hand. Notice how the cement that’s in the sun has absorbed the heat from the sun and is radiating heat.
Place ice cubes on both halves. What happens to the ice cube on the sunny side?
Stormy Weather Lessons
A thunderstorm is an excellent lesson in weather systems. You don’t need to leave the safety of the indoors; just use your ears and eyes and you can tell how far away the storm is.
Watch for lightning. When you see the flash of lightning, start counting or timing with a watch the number of seconds until you hear the clap of thunder. That’s roughly how many miles away the storm is.
Because light travels faster than sound, you’ll see the lightning first. As the thunder gets closer, it will go from being a low rumble to a loud crack. At the height of the storm, loud cracking thunder and lightning will occur simultaneously. As the storm moves away, some seconds will return between thunder and lightning.
