In this series of nine labs about hurricanes, students will study satellite imagery, videos, and animated visualizations, learn about weather systems, air pressure, and heat transfer, and access a live hurricane tracker tool.
Each lab can be divided up into smaller sections and many can be completed individually in a flipped classroom format.
Teaching Tips
Positives
There are so many great labs to choose from and they include assessments to check for understanding.
Key questions and learning objectives are outlined in the teacher pages.
Additional Prerequisites
Review teacher resources for general background information relevant to each lab.
Students will need access to the Internet.
Differentiation
Social studies classes could use some of these labs to connect to topics such as sea level rise, climate justice, and climate migration.
Science classes can use these labs to connect to various topics in chemistry, physics, and Earth science classes.
Biology classes can connect these labs with lessons about ecosystems, the greenhouse effect, biomes, and natural disasters.
Scientist Notes
Students will have proficiency in interpreting and analyzing weather data from satellite imagery. This resource is recommended for teaching.
Standards
Science
ESS2: Earth's Systems
HS.ESS2.3 Develop a model based on evidence of Earth’s interior to describe the cycling of matter by thermal convection.
HS.ESS2.4 Use a model to describe how variations in the flow of energy into and out of Earth’s systems result in changes in climate.
ETS1: Engineering Design
HS.ETS1.4 Use a computer simulation to model the impact of proposed solutions to a complex real-world problem with numerous criteria and constraints on interactions within and between systems relevant to the problem.
PS1: Matter and Its Interactions
HS.PS1.5 Apply scientific principles and evidence to provide an explanation about the effects of changing the temperature or concentration of the reacting particles on the rate at which a reaction occurs.
