New Page 1

Our Town’s Weather
Grade 3

Objective:

Students will:

Correctly read a thermometer and be able to record the temperature
Make observations of the weather by using your different senses, along with using different weather stations websites to long the temperature for each day.
Correctly graph the temperatures that were recorded using Microsoft Excel

Generalizations:

A thermometer tells the temperature inside and outside using the Fahrenheit scale
Maximum, minimum and range is a way to find out information about data
A table helps organize data for easy reading

Skills and Processes:

Able to:

Record temperatures read off the thermometer
Draw conclusions on the class temperatures
Read a graph to plot data

Materials:

A large map of the state of New York
Directions sheet to log the temperatures
Directions sheet to create a graph using Microsoft Excel
Computers
Internet access

Rationale:

New York State Social Studies Standard #3 – Geography

Students will: Use a variety of intellectual skills to demonstrate their understanding of the geography of the interdependent world in which we live—local, national, and global—including the distribution of people, places, and environments over the Earth’s surface.

Key Idea 2: Ask geographic questions about where places are located; why they are located where they are; what is important about their locations; and how their locations are related to the location of other people and places.

Curriculum Standards for Social Studies National Standard #1:

Key Idea #3 – People, Places & Environment

Use appropriate resources, data sources, and geographic tools such as atlases, data bases, grid systems, charts, graphs, and maps to generate manipulate and interpret information.

New York State Mathematics Standard #3:

Students will:

Students use mathematical operations and relationships among them to understand mathematics.

Key Idea 5D:

Consider differences between mean, median, and mode
Collect and organize simple data sets to answer questions

Key Idea 5E:

Compare graphs that can be demonstrated by the teacher
Use pictographs and other graphic representation to model problems. (Bar Graph).

New York State Science Standard #4

Students will:

Energy exists in many forms, and when these forms change energy is conserved.

Key Idea 1:

Weather changing from day to day throughout the seasons

Key Idea 2:

Weather can be described and measured by temperature

New York State Learning Standards for Technology: Standard #5: Students will apply technological knowledge and skills to design, construct, use, and evaluate products and systems to satisfy human and environmental needs.

Students:

• Use the computer as a tool for generating and drawing ideas

Procedures:

Prior Knowledge:

The students will have prior knowledge how to read a map and locate points on a map. Also the students will be familiar with the program Microsoft Excel.

Introduction:

Any guesses as to what the temperature will be tonight?
Do you think you will all record the same temperature or different temperatures? Why?
If there are different temperatures recorded, will the warmer ones be on one side of the state and the colder ones are in another part of the state or will they be mixed up? Why?
Are there any reasons why the temperature where you live will be different from another place in the state?
Explain to the students that they will be taking temperatures from the internet from different websites of town around the state to find out which part of the state is warmer or colder than the other.
You will be recording the temperatures at the same time each day.

Body:

Hang up a map of the state in the classroom where it can remain relatively undisturbed for a week or so, yet is accessible by the students.
On a large sheet of poster board list the student’s names down the left side with room for a city name column and a temperature observation.
Place a colored star next to each name on the list using as many different colors as possible.
As the students to come up to the map. Blindfold the students and have them point to the map. Where they point on the map is the city they will use to find temperatures of during the project.
Once the student has found his/her location, he/she should put a colored star on the map matching the color of the star on the name board. It may be a good idea to have the students put his/her initials next to the start to make it easier to locate each student’s city later.
The students will be using the website www.weather.com to check the temperature of their city.
Each day at the same time the students must record the temperature of their city. They will record the temperature they received on a data sheet. (Click here for temperature data sheet). As a class we will come up with a time that they will check the temperature of their city.
Explain that the students are making a table of the temperature observations. A table is another name for a list of items, such as temperatures and names.

Conclusion:

Once the students complete their two-week span of recording temperatures we will find the range of the class temperatures.
They will be able to see when the highest temperature was and the lowest temperature.
Next the students will be able to apply their high temperatures for each day into a table to see which city within the whole class had the highest temperature within the two-week span.
Ask the students: “Did anyone have the same temperature over the course of the two-weeks?”
Tell the students that you are interested in finding the range of the temperatures in the state of New York.
To do this you need to know the maximum (highest) temperature and the minimum (lowest) temperature within the state.
The maximum temperature is the highest temperature on the list or table of the high temperature. No other temperature will be greater than the highest. Have the students find the maximum temperature on the list. Write the temperature on the board
The minimum temperature is the lowest temperature on the list or table of the high temperature. No other temperatures will be less than the minimum temperature. Have the students find the minimum temperature on the list. Write the temperature on the board.
We can make a measure of the range of air temperature by taking the difference between the maximum and minimum air temperatures.
As a class, subtract the minimum from the maximum in a conventional manner or by counting up from the minimum to the maximum.
The number that you come up with when you subtract or count represents the range of air temperatures.
The larger change or difference between the maximum and minimum, the larger the range in air temperature.
The smaller the change or difference between the maximum and minimum, the smaller the range of air temperatures
The students create a bar graph by entering their temperatures that were recorded into a Microsoft Excel spread sheet. The teacher will hand out a directions sheet to guide the students with the steps they need to follow in order to complete their table correctly. (Our Town’s Temperatures Graphing Activity/Rubric). The students will be able to see how they will be graded for the graphing activity. The rubric will guide the students in exactly what they need to do.
Show the students an example of how their information will look on a spreadsheet and what the graph will look like as well. (Excel spreadsheet example).

Evaluation:

The teacher can evaluate the students in a few different ways. While the students are working on creating the graph with temperatures they located through www.weather.com the teacher can walk around the room and see if the students are on task and creating the graph using Microsoft Excel. When the students have finished their graphs and have printed them out the teacher will collect the papers and correct them to see if the information is correctly graphed. When the lesson is over with you can give the students a review to see if they were able to master the information of creating a range with the temperatures. Make up a list of air temperatures and have the students find the maximum and minimum and range of the air temperatures.