W is for... Weather

When I started planning for the school year, back in the spring, I asked Kennady what she wanted to study in Science, and she said she wanted to learn about weather. We have included a study about weather before, but it was several years ago, so I agreed that it would be an interesting course to do with her during middle school.

We are primarily using  God's Design for Heaven and Earth - Our Weather and Water from Answers in Genesis as our textbook. This is a science curriculum that I have really enjoyed over the years, because it makes teaching science easy, especially for more than one student, and it's easily adaptable for teaching a wide age range.


In the spring, we also had the opportunity to review a Weather and Climate study from Moving Beyond the Page. That was a great preview for what we are doing this year, and we plan on doing many of those activities over again.


These two activities were particularly fun for Kennady the first time through. I am sure we'll do the experiment to find a dewpoint again, because it had an unexpected "Wow" factor for Kennady. And as hard as she worked to make the anemometer, I hope she kept it safe and in working condition so we can use that again as well.

It turned out that the text we are using for social studies began with a couple of chapters on weather and climate as part of the study of geography, so that worked out very nicely! We started the school year with that, and learned about the creation, and about the flood and how it affected the earth. The text also discussed the major landforms and bodies of water, and how these features affect climate and weather. There was a large section on climates and vegetation as well.

When we got started with Our Weather and Water, the first few chapters go over some of the same foundation, and we were also able to do an activity that demonstrated how rocks, soil, and sand would have settled into layers following the flood.
   

Today we finished the first section about Atmosphere and Meteorology. The next section is about Ancient Weather and Climate, and then we get to the fun hands-on here-and-now studies. We'll be keeping records about our own weather and learning about forecasting. We will study clouds and make our own in a bottle. We'll learn about storms and extreme weather. We'll be setting up our own weather station and keeping our own data. Our homeschool group is tentatively planning a science fair in the spring, and I hope that maybe this year we'll be able to attend, and perhaps Kennady will give a presentation on weather data and forecasting.

I can't help but wonder what kind of weather we'll experience during this school year. Will the hurricane season bring strong winds our way? Will we have lots of snow this winter, or just a dusting here and there? Will there be ice storms or electrical storms to interrupt our school days with power outages? I hope there's enough to keep Kennady busy recording the data, but nothing too severe!

What kind of weather are you experiencing? Leave a comment and let me know!

This post is linked at Blogging through the Alphabet, hosted by Ben And Me.

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