MetLink Activity 18 (for various age groups)

The weather this week
Monday 31 January to Friday 3 February 2006

This activity is suitable for, or can be adapted for, any age group. However, it is mainly intended for use with the 7 to 11 years and 11 to 14 years age groups.
The aims of this activity are:
+ to use IT skills in finding information.;
+ to use mapping and graphical skills in presenting information and making use of standard weather mapping symbols and other symbols;
+ to describe weather conditions and how they vary in different locations and over time;
+ to consider how weather conditions influence human activities.

The Activity: You need an atlas. If you have access to Microsoft Encarta, that would be good. Or you can use an atlas book.

Getting started:
Look at the log of weather observations for your own school or college weather station for the five days of this week.
To do this, go to the MetLink Home page by clicking here.
Click on the Data central button at the top of the Home page, and then, on the drop-down menu that appears, click on Search observations.
Click on Search observations data.
In Name contains, type in the name of your school or college.
Set the From date to 30 January 2006.
Set the To date to 03 February 2006.
Click on the Search now button and the observations log for your school or college will appear on screen.

Task 1: Draw a pictograph to show the following elements of the weather recorded over the week:
Maximum and minimum temperature
Rainfall
Cloud amount and type
Wind direction and force
The general weather conditions
Before you start, please take a look at an example of how to draw a weather pictograph by clicking here.
In this example
+ Maximum temperatures are shown by a red line and minimum temperatures are shown by a blue line. Notice that the point for each day is in the centre of its column. The temperature scale is on the left vertical axis of the graph.
+ Rainfall for each day is shown as blue columns, At this location there was no rain recorded on Monday or Tuesday.
Cloud amounts for each day are shown by in-filled circles using the standard Met Office key. Click here and scroll down the linked page to see this key.
Cloud types are shown to the right of the circles that show cloud amounts, using the key shown on the pictogram. These are the cloud types with their Met Office codes:
High-level clouds: Ci Cirrus; Cc Cirrocumulus; Cs Cirrostratus
Medium-level clouds: Ac Altocumulus; As Altostratus
Low-level clouds: Cu Cumulus; Sc Stratocumulus; St Stratus
Clouds of considerable vertical extent: Ns Nimbostratus; Cb Cumulonimbus.
To find out more about cloud descriptions, please click here.
Wind direction and force: Again, use the standard Met Office mapping key.

The general weather conditions: You can use both the standard Met Office key again, and also the symbols used by the Met Office in weather forecasting. To obtain this, click here and under the map of the UK that appears, click the word Key. If your browser has a pop-up blocker, you can allow this one.

Task 2: Describe from the pictograph what the weather has been like during the week. You might discuss this in pairs, in a group or as a whole class as well. Also think about how the weather has affected your life and the lives of the people you know and those who live in your area this week. Again, you may include this in your discussion and write about it.

Task 3: Return to the MetLink home page. Go forward again to the Search observations page and this time just click on Search now. This will show you all of the participants who have logged their observations today.
If you are working on this after Friday 3 February then you will need first to set the dates correctly to Friday 03 February 2006.
Select one participant whose observations interest you. It is best to select one with a full set of observations.
Click on the name, which will bring the participantÕs Details page on screen.
By clicking on the Map icons you can find out where the place is, and by clicking on the Cam icon you will see an image (or maybe images) from the nearest webcam.

Click on MetLink observations made (top left of screen page) and this will show you the participantÕs observations. Check that they have a full set of five observations for the week. If they have not, then choose another place. You can now:
+ Create a second pictograph to show their weather for the week.
+ Describe the place Ð where it is and what it is like from the webcam image and any description provided on the details page.
+ Describe in what ways their weather is different from and in what ways it is similar to the weather at your school during the week.

Finally, has anyone in your class spotted the place which the example pictograph shows? It is one of the participants on the observations data page for Friday 3 February. If you think you know, your teacher might like to email the answer to MetLink HQ. (And to the staff and students at the place, we say Òthank youÓ for supplying such interesting data, and please let us know if you have spotted yourselves!) We will publish the name of the place during next week!