General Information Project Overview Curriculum Connections Learning Outcomes Resource Connections Evaluation

  General Information

  Project Overview

Grade 3 students will be put in groups of five. Each morning they will be required to check the Internet to find out the weather forecast for that day. This will be done for their own region as well as all other regions of Newfoundland and Labrador. Students will then be required to write up a weather forecast for their own region and report it over the schools P.A. System.

In continuing with this project students will also be given a penpal with his/her email address. The penpal should live outside of Newfoundland and Labrador. The students will be required to write to their penpal telling them the weather forecast for the day. The penpal, in turn, will write to our students with their weather forecast. Student then will compare weather forecasts.

From the help of Internet access, students will compare outside activities their penpals are involved in and how the weather affects this.

This project also requires the students to keep a daily record of the weather in their particular area of study for three weeks. In doing this they will notice extended weather patterns and sudden weather changes. They will also be able to predict what the weather might be like for a particular day, and the type of clothing that should be worn.

  Curriculum Connections

Curriculum areas address by project:

Science:

 Students will understand that weather, in their community, as well as in other places of
   the world, changes over short and long periods of time.

 Students will understand that observations of weather patterns can help them predict
   the weather.

 Students will understand that the weather affects what we can do.

Math:

We study figurative and numerical patterns in Math. In this project the students will observe weather patterns and make predictions of weather forecasts.

Health:

The students will learn that it is important to dress appropriately for the weather. In this project students will compare clothing worn to school, with penpals, as it relates to the forecast for that day.

Language Arts:

This project will provide opportunities for students to research, skim, read, write, record and present data. Therefore improving the required Grade 3 Language Arts skills and improving their overall proficiency in Language.

  Learning Outcomes

Learning Outcomes

1. Students will be able to go on-line to find the weather forecast for each region in Newfoundland and Labrador. They will be able to identify their own region and report their forecast each morning over the schools P.A. system.
2. Students will use both on-line searching and e-mail communications to determine the climate in different parts of Canada.
3. Students will learn that climate is different in different places and how it affects the way they live.

How they relate to the Provincial learning outcomes.

The above outcomes are tied closely to the Provincial Science Curriculum goals is that students will gain an understanding of how science is a way of learning about the world around us. They will also realize the importance of working with a team and sharing their findings with others.

Intended Learning outcomes for Technology Education

1. Students will develop a vocabulary of terminology and language, related to selected communications technologies.
2. Students will be able to examine why they make particular technological choices.
3. Students will demonstrate knowledge of the basic communications principles of encoding/decoding, transmitting/receiving, storing/retrieving.
4. Students will use communications tools for a variety of purposes.
5. Students will use technology to expand the classroom by creating links to other cultures (to discover differences in climate).

  Resource Connections

The Stellar Schools Internet Connection is vital to the success of our project. The grade 3 students need access to the Internet to identify their local daily forecast and to compare it with the forecast in other regions in Newfoundland and Labrador.

The Internet Connection is also important in that students in this project will be researching the different weather conditions across Canada and how it affects the way people live.

Other Resources

 Assorted information books on weather

 Print and Electronic Encyclopedia

  Evaluation

The learning outcomes previously listed will be used to determine the level of achievement by our students along with anecdotal records and checklists and from observation by the teachers involved.

Along with the above evaluation will be complete by:

1. listening to oral weather reports
2. reading letters from penpals
3. reading daily records of weather conditions and predictions