Category: Weather

Weather and Climate: updated Teachers’ CPD

Post author By Sylvia Knight
Post date 8 May 2024

We have just updated and extended the ‘More for Teachers’ information associated with our award-winning Weather and Climate: a Teachers’ Guide. These information sheets are designed to provide CPD for teachers of geography who would like to improve or update their weather and climate subject knowledge.

The teachers’ guide and the accompanying online teaching resources, aim to give UK geography teachers all that they need to deliver relevant, engaging and thorough weather and climate lessons to 11–14+ year old students. They are not linked to any specific curriculum but should be easily adaptable to all.

There are 20 topics or chapters. Across these, there are three threads or paths which can be taken through the online resources, depending on the teaching time available:

Basic weather: Weather in our lives, weather measurements, weather and climate, global atmospheric circulation, global climate zones, air masses, pressure and wind and water in the atmosphere

Climate: Weather and climate, global atmospheric circulation, global climate zones, past climate change, polar climate, hot deserts, changing global climate, UK climate, changing UK climate, the climate crisis

Extending weather: Anticyclones, depressions, microclimates, urban weather, tropical cyclones.

The Royal Meteorological Society believes that:

all students should leave school with basic weather literacy that allows them to understand the weather that affects them, their leisure activities and the careers they choose to follow

every student should leave school with basic climate literacy that would enable them to engage with the messages put forward by the media or politicians and to make informed decisions about their own opportunities and responsibilities.

To this end, we have embedded a climate change thread throughout the online resources, showing its relevance to both weather and climate. An understanding of weather and climate is fundamental to an understanding of climate change.

There is a progression of knowledge through the topics, supported by review and assessment activities. The resources also progressively develop key geographical skills such as data, mapwork, GIS, fieldwork and critical thinking.

We also include common misconceptions which should be challenged in the classroom.

Many of the online teaching resources are available with standard or easier versions, as well as extension or alternative activities.

Find the scheme of work, teaching resources, background information for teachers, as well as the Teachers’ Guide here.

Climate Change maths Secondary Weather

Maths Resources for Scotland’s Curriculum

Post author By Sylvia Knight
Post date 22 November 2023

We are delighted to have worked with Education Scotland to tweak some of our maths resources to align them with Scotland’s Curriculum.

These resources were developed a couple of years ago in conjunction with MEI, and allow teachers to demonstrate to their students how their maths skills are relevant to their understanding of issues associated with climate change.

Extreme weather Geography Secondary Weather

New Animation – Storm Surges

Post author By Sylvia Knight
Post date 2 October 2023

We are delighted to have worked with Seth Jackson Animation and the staff and students at Boston College to produce a new animation, explaining what factors combine to give us storm surges in the UK, their impacts, adaptations and how climate change will affect them. There’s also a knowledge organiser for students to take notes on and summarise their learning.

Geography Weather

Cloud, Sunshine and a cool Breeze

Post author By Sylvia Knight
Post date 5 June 2023

Were you lucky enough to have blazing sunshine through the half term holiday, or were you sitting under a blanket of cloud?

Whichever, the cool wind and the distribution of cloud were a lovely case study of Polar continental air.

With High pressure sitting to the North of Scotland, and winds blowing clockwise around it, the typical pattern of cloud forming over the western side of the North Sea, spreading onto the eastern side of Scotland and England, persisted for many days. One some days, the cloud was thin enough for most to evaporate during the day, on others, the cloud persisted.

Having come from Scandinavia or Siberia, the air was cool. To identify the source of the air, simply pick an isobar that crosses the UK, and follow it back to see where the air has come from, remembering that the wind blows approximately along the isobars, in a clockwise direction around High pressure.

CPD Extreme weather Weather

5 Weather Websites to Keep an Eye on

Post author By Sylvia Knight
Post date 18 July 2022

Here are 5 (ish) websites which anyone teaching about weather may find useful:

Earth.nullschool.net for current and past atmospheric and oceanic conditions

Met Office weather warnings

Met Office synoptic charts

Blitzortung for live, global lightning

NASA for live, global rainfall

NetWeather for radar images, will it snow and some satellite images

Zoom Earth for satellite images

Climate Climate Change Weather

Weather, Climate and Climate Change

Post author By Sylvia Knight
Post date 27 June 2022

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.

Climate CPD Teaching Weather

Resource Wins GA Silver Award

Post author By Sylvia Knight
Post date 11 April 2022

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

Secondary Weather

Tropical Continental Air Mass and Saharan Dust

Post author By Sylvia Knight
Post date 16 March 2022

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

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.

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.

Extreme weather Geography Secondary Weather

Storm Eunice and Generic Case Study Template

Post author By Sylvia Knight
Post date 3 March 2022

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.

Books Primary Schools Weather

My First Book of Weather

Post author By Sylvia Knight
Post date 28 February 2022

This beautifully illustrated children’s book is full of fantastic facts about weather, climate and the world around us. It would be a wonderful gift for primary school aged children, with plenty of engaging pictures to keep infants interested as well as lots of interesting facts and trivia to interest junior children. The author, Camilla de la Bedoyere, has written more than 200 books for children and adults, many of which explore the natural world. Cinyee Chiu, the illustrator, believes in a sustainable lifestyle and is interested in projects about environmental/climate issues.

Covering a wide range of subjects, the author and illustrator take us on a tour to discover: ‘what is weather?’ and ‘how does the weather change?’, including how forecasts and charts are made. The book also tells us about Earth’s past climate, wild weather, extremes and climate change. It covers an amazingly large range of topics and both children and adults will likely learn plenty of new information about weather and climate from reading this book together.

As you would expect, the book starts with a gentle introduction to the atmosphere, the Sun and the wind, but it soon goes beyond the more basic kids’ weather books as it shows examples of how wind is measured with the Beaufort Scale. The water cycle and formation of clouds is shown with accurate representations of the different types of cloud. In the section on how the weather changes, it starts with a selection of nature’s weather warnings, where I learnt a new and interesting fact about how crickets chirrup faster and louder as the temperature rises! This is nicely followed by an overview of how storms develop and how we forecast the weather. The only thing that is missing from this section is some time spent in the book talking about supercomputers and the importance of number crunching, which is somewhat glossed over. However, unlike other children’s books about weather, it is nice that this book includes information about weather charts and weather records. There is a large section on world weather, which spans from Earth’s past climate (both hot and cold) to climates and seasons, making links to migrations and the impacts of weather and climate on people. A weather book would not be complete without sections on wild weather, from hurricanes and tornadoes to extreme and strange weather, which is covered very well by this author and illustrator. Finally, climate change has a prominent place in this excellent book, with a focus on renewable energy and how it is generated.

The illustrations in this book are beautiful and the content very engaging and interesting, giving the perfect combination to keep children and adults interested from front to back cover. Dr Sylvia Knight (RMetS) was consulted during the writing of the book, so we can feel confident that the content is accurate. I would definitely recommend this book for primary age school children – a great gift and lovely to read with them as an adult too!

My First Book of Weather, Bedoyere, Camilla (Author) & Chiu, Cinyee (Illustrator) Templar Publishing, 2021 Hardback £12.99, 64 pp ISBN 978-1-787418-50-9

Reviewed by Jenny Rourke for Weather, July 2021

Her original review can be found at https://rmets.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/wea.4055

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