Community Weather Network

Grade Level: 6-8

Academic Areas: Mathematics, Science

Duration of service: Semester Long

Character Virtues: Civic Virtue and Citizenship, Responsibility

Service Areas: Environmental

 

 Service Learning Project:

Students will participate in a semester long community based project tracking local weather data. Students will learn that weather describes conditions of the atmosphere at a given location for a short period of time. Students will then decide where to effectively place weather tracking equipment to obtain the most useful data. Students will recruit targeted local community members to house the weather equipment and to report back the data to the class. Once community members agree to participate students will organize a meeting to inform these participants about the expectations of the project and the data collecting process. Students will contact participants at a regularly scheduled interval to obtain the collected data. Students will place collected data into organized tables, charts, graphs, and maps. Once data collection is complete, students will analyze the results, draw conclusions, and create a final report to be shared with the community.

Goals and Objectives

Academic

Learning Goal: Students will understand that weather describes the conditions of the atmosphere at a given location for a short period of time.

Standard: MST (2)

Learning Goal: Students will analyze collected data to create a profile of local weather and local climate through the use of graphs, tables, maps, and charts.

Standard: MST (1)

 

Service

Community need: Lack of public awareness of local weather patterns to maximize efficiency and productivity both agriculturally and for businesses that rely on being outdoors.

Possible Community Partners: Residents in specific geographic areas, local meteorologists, local outdoor./agricultural related businesses

Objective: Students will be responsible for communicating and collecting data from involved residents/businesses.

Objective: Students will share data with local residents through generated charts, graphs, and tables through available forms of media (local newscasts, presentations, newsletters, etc.)

Character

Virtue: Responsibility

Objective: Students will maintain their commitment to communicate with local residents/businesses involved in the project.

Virtue: Civic virtue and Citizenship

Objective: Students will provide valuable data to interested community members on local weather patterns.

Key Activities

Key Planning Activities

  1. Students will meet as a group to discuss how the creation of a local weather network in the area will benefit community interests.
  2. Students will learn about how to collect appropriate weather data using the specified equipment.
  3. Students will learn how to generate and organize collected data.

 Key Service Activities

  1. Students will teach involved participants to appropriately collect data using the provided equipment.
  2. Students will contact community participants to collect data at scheduled intervals and may also schedule site visits.
  3. Students will generate charts, graphs, maps, and tables to illustrate the results in a variety of media forms. Students will then deduce how weather and climate vary in a geographic area.
  4. Students will communicate results to interested parties through available forms of media.

 

Key Reflection Activities

  1. (oral) Students will be asked how they feel their interactions with participants will affect the success of the results in regards to the character virtues.
  2. (written) Students will write about an event that was significant to them relating to the creation, supervision, and reporting of the weather network data.
  3. (performance) Students will create flyers demonstrating their roles as citizens. The flyers will be distributed at the community assembly.

 

Celebration Activity

Students will present their findings at a community assembly and be recognized by school and district officials. The presentations will conclude with a reception. Everyone involved with be invited to attend the presentations and reception.