Category: Blog

All news and events in this section

Categories
Climate Climate Change Weather

Weather, Climate and Climate Change

This is probably one of our favourite short explainer type videos that we use when delivering teacher CPD and when talking to students. It uses the analogy of a dog and its owner to represent the relationship between weather and climate, and can be really helpful!   You can find classroom resources and further support materials for teachers in our Weather and Climate: a Teachers’ Guide chapter on weather and climate.
Categories
Fieldwork

Ideas for National Fieldwork Week

dark clouds

Here are some ideas for National Fieldwork Week which runs from 6-10 June 2022 – suitable for primary, secondary, geography, science and maths lessons. If you use some of them with your class, why not share them @RMetS #MetLink or use it as evidence for a MetMark? 

Bubbles

Investigate the school microclimate using bubbles

 

Use the PhyPhox app to explore atmospheric pressure variations around your school buildings – for example in a stairwell. Or use it to see how pressure changes over time. 

PhyPhox app
dark clouds

Use a lightmeter app and a greyscale colour chart to test the hypothesis that “When the clouds are darker, more of the Sun’s light has been scattered and so less light reaches the ground”

Does your school have an indoor microclimate? Does it link to how comfortable students find different classrooms? Or even to behaviour? 

classroom
school microclimate

Where would you put …. an old favourite; use this resource or this lesson plan as the basis for your own fieldwork. 

Contrails and climate change – the clouds, contrails, that aircraft leave behind have almost as much impact on the climate as the fossil fuel the aircraft consumes. How many contrails can you see? How long are they? This old OPAL resource is a good start. 

Aircraft and contrails

Measuring raindrops… How big is a raindrop? Collect data and analyse mode, mean and median, range, interquartile range and standard deviation

raindrops
Categories
Climate Change Primary Science Teaching

Post SATs Year 6 Weather and Climate Day

We have pulled together a set of Weather and Climate Change resources which could be used with a year 6 class after their SATs exams. Designed as a progressive set of engaging and interactive resources, they introduce skills and knowledge which will help prepare students for secondary school.

The resources can be used in independent lessons, or as part of a whole or half weather and climate themed day.

 

Categories
Climate CPD Teaching Weather

Resource Wins GA Silver Award

Rob Gamesby collects GA silver award

We were delighted that our Weather and Climate Teachers’ Guide/ scheme of work for 11-14 geography was awarded a ‘silver’ by the Geographical Association at their conference in April.

“This excellent – and free – resource, accompanied by differentiated PowerPoints, is well-structured, informative, and fits some complex weather and climate topics into a digestible format. The judges felt it is an accessible resource that provides support for subject specialist and non-specialist teachers alike. They liked the examples that the authors used and the way it makes connections from one lesson to another, building the learning along the way.”

Photo credit: Geographical Association/Shaun Flannery 2022

Categories
Climate Change CPD

5 Climate Change Websites to Keep an Eye on

Here are 5 websites which anyone teaching about climate change may find useful: 

 

The IPCC website for the latest reports. 

Carbon Brief for current articles covering the latest developments in climate science, climate policy and energy policy. 

Gridwatch for live statistics showing UK energy production. 

The Global Carbon Atlas  to explore and visualize the most up-to-date data on carbon fluxes resulting from human activities and natural processes.

The Climate Action Tracker tracks international government climate action and measures it against the globally agreed Paris Agreement aim of “holding warming well below 2°C, and pursuing efforts to limit warming to 1.5°C.”

Categories
Secondary Weather

Tropical Continental Air Mass and Saharan Dust

This morning, skies were orange/ beige across much of England as a Tropical continental (Tc) air mass brought Saharan dust. 

Saharan Dust on Windscreen

Image credit: Geoff Jenkins

Read more about why the air was carrying so much dust, and see some stunning photos from Spain and France here. The further the air travelled, the more dust was deposited and the less dust remained in the air – so the most vivid skies were in the south. 

Read our guide to air masses for background information or show our YouTube explainer. 

weather chart 16th March 2022

How can you tell that there is Tc air from this weather chart (midnight on 16th March 2022)? 

The air approximately follows the isobars, shown as thin lines on this chart. To work out which way, you need to look at the pressure systems and remember that air goes clockwise around anticyclones (H) and anticlockwise around cyclones (L). 

Considering either the 962mbar Low or the 1033mbar High shows you that the air is coming from the south (a southerly wind) across England.

Following the isobar marked 1020 back, you can see that the air has come over Spain from Africa. This is a Tropical continental air mass.

Behind the occluded front, for much of Ireland, the wind coming from the west. The 1020mbar Low is a bit misleading, but you can see that the air coming up from the south diverts to curve round it in an anticlockwise flow. 

Tc weather chart
Categories
Research Science Secondary

Resources for Mars Day

Mars not dusty

14th March 2022 is Mars Day. 

Establishing the radiation or energy budget of the Earth has been crucial to understanding climate change, but what do the radiation budgets of Mars and other planets in our solar system look like? Read about it in this article from Physics Review or this one from Science in School. 

You can find the energy budget images for all the planets mentioned here. 

Categories
Books Secondary

Book Review: the Weather Detectives

Weather Detectives
 
The Weather Detectives
Author: Michael Erb
Year: 2021
Publisher: Tumblehome, Inc. 
Suggested age range: 9-12
Price: £11.99
Set in the Caribbean, this book sees two young people and their associates set out to investigate some mysterious stories surrounding a cruise ship and its captain. 
Interspersed through the story are excepts from a weather guide being written by one of the characters. In many ways these are the best bits of the book – engaging and well written. It’s just a shame that they don’t really link in to the story.  Given the title, I was expecting the weather, or these asides, to provide clues which the protagonists could use to solve the mystery. 
It was tricky to suggest an age range for this book. The plot line is not very sophisticated, and it’s a short read, but the vocabulary is quite advanced in places. Fans of other mysteries aimed at this age range, such as those written by Lauren St. John, Lauren Child or Robin Stevens, would be disappointed.  
Written for an American audience, the only issue for a reader from another country would be not knowing what the IRS (Internal Revenue Service) is – one of the ‘clues’ is related to this.  
The author has written other books and supplied some suggested related activities at https://www.weatherdetectives.org
Categories
Climate Change Secondary

New Resource for International Women’s Day 2022

Sustainable development goals 5 and 13

We have created a new resource in time for International Women’s Day 2022, exploring the links between two of the Sustainable Development Goals – gender equality, and climate action.

Taking information from this weeks’ InterGovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report on Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability as well as some of the relevant highlights fromCOP26, teachers can adapt the resource to suit their class. 

 

Categories
Extreme weather Geography Secondary Weather

Storm Eunice and Generic Case Study Template

Storm Eunice cloud and wind

We have created a new worksheet which allows students to collect information and create a case study of a named UK storm. As part of the worksheet, students collect and annotate weather chart and other information about the storm including weather warnings. 

Storm Eunice is given as a worked example. 

Subscribe to MetLink updates

Weather and climate resources and events for teachers

BACK TO TOP