Weather Headlines:A Tool for Science Learning
Becca Hatheway and Lisa GardinerSpark – UCAR Science Education
spark.ucar.edu/workshops
National Center for Atmospheric Research– Researching the atmosphere, weather, climate– A non-profit research lab, funded primarily by NSF.
Spark - UCAR Science Education• Goal: to increase public understanding of
atmospheric science and engage communities with research.– Sharing science content, activities, and teacher PD. – Providing education at NCAR in Boulder, CO.– Offering research internships for college students.– Working with communities that are partnering
with researchers.
Weather is always making headlines.
• Weather is…– accessible science.– visible science.– happening now!– always changing.– in the headlines.
Weather affects everyone.
• Weather impacts daily life.• It’s also relevant to national
security and global politics.• Cross cutting between social
studies, science, and geography.
About climate change & weather events:
• When an extreme weather event occurs, people ask whether it was due to climate change.
• No single weather event is due to climate change. All weather events are affected by climate change, some more than others.
The weather on steroids
An analogy…Climate warming is changing the weather like steroids change a baseball player.
http://www2.ucar.edu/atmosnews/attribution/steroids-baseball-climate-change
Weather events are not equally affected by warming. We are still learning how they are, or are not, affected.
Weather Headlines Workshop Outline
• Activity #1: Weather in the News– Compare stories about weather events from different
media sources and different perspectives• Hurricane Sandy• Joplin Tornado• Snowmageddon
• Activity #2: Tracking Hurricane News– Make a timeline based on news coverage of Hurricane
Irene as it moved up the East Coast in 2011
Activity #1:Weather in the News
http://spark.ucar.edu/activity/weather-news
Snowmageddon , Washington, D.C., 2010
Weather isn’t covered the same way in different news sources
• What’s the perspective?– Local news versus national news
• What’s the point of view?– Reporting versus opinion/editorial
• What’s the focus?– People focus versus science focus
Oct 28, 2012, front page of Huffington Post
Oct 28, 2012, front page of The New York Times
Activity Instructions: Weather in the News
• Each small group reads the articles in their case study (there will be three case studies in the room)
• To conserve workshop time, skim the first side of the worksheet and focus on the four questions on the reverse.
• As a group, record your answers to those questions on chart paper and post on the wall.
Activity #2:Tracking Hurricane News
http://spark.ucar.edu/activity/tracking-hurricane-news
Tracking Hurricane News
1. Each student reads a news story about Hurricane Irene.
2. Students present information from their articles to the rest of the class.
3. Each student constructs a timeline to describe the hurricane’s story over time and across geographic area based on all the news stories.
Meet Hurricane Irene• On Aug 20, 2011 Irene
became a tropical storm
• Strengthened to a Category 3 storm
• Made landfall many times along its path (Puerto Rico, Bahamas, North Carolina, New York and New Jersey)
Activity Instructions:Tracking Hurricane News
• Objective: Create a timeline of Hurricane Irene through quotes from the news about how the storm affected people and places. – (note: we are keeping it simple for the sake of time!)
1. Read an article and take notes on Worksheet 1. Can you summarize it in one sentence?
2. Choose a quote from the article that interests you. Add it to the timeline with the date and location of your news story.
Other ideas for including weather news in the classroom
• Students investigate how news describes people during a storm.– Who is involved when a storm hits? (forecasters, emergency
managers, government officials, community members)– What’s did they have to say?
• Classroom debate: Should winter storms have names? – The National Weather Service doesn’t name them. The Weather
Channel does. – Have students research why storms are named, and decide whether
it’s helpful for winter storms as it is for hurricanes.
Thanks!
• Lisa Gardiner [email protected]• Becca Hatheway [email protected]• For workshop resources, visit Weather Headlines
at spark.ucar.edu/workshops
