General Information Project Overview Curriculum Connections Resource Connections Evaluation

  General Information

  Project Overview

One of the clusters in the Grade 5 Science program is the weather. Students will come to realize that daily weather conditions are not a result of random occurrences, but rather are part of larger systems and patterns that can be predicted both on short term and seasonal basis. An important part of the study of weather is an understanding of air, water and the sun. This year our weather systems are also being affected by El Nino and the depleting of the ozone layer.

This proposal will allow students to use the computer and Internet to research the effect of these two fairly new phenomena on our weather systems around the world. Our text does not adequately address these topics, so we have to look to more current resources to access information. We would use the Internet to research current weather storm happenings around the world, such as the sleet storm in Ontario, Quebec, the flooding in the U.S., freezing temperatures in the American States and countries experiencing snow for the first time, and other related occurrences.

The students will collect information to write reports, collect weather data and present them in tables and graphs, record and compare regional or national forecasts.

This will give the Grade 5 students an opportunity with "hands-on" activities in Science, Language and Computer Literacy.

Children will enjoy the computer and this will help address the learning outcomes for technology in our school. The students will gain a knowledge of Keyboarding and WordPerfect. They will learn how to log on and log off the Internet and how to use the World Wide Web browser, such as Netscape.

They will learn how to send and receive e-mail to schools in cities studied. They will learn how the resources of Internet are related to the "Real" world.

  Curriculum Connections

This project will connect Science with Social Studies, Language Arts, Math and Computer Studies. The local weather station, the school librarian, resource teachers and technology teachers, as well as parents (especially those with Internet at home) will become resource people to help students do research for this project.

  Evaluation

• Students will demonstrate an appreciation for the use of the computer as an educational tool.

• Students will demonstrate knowledge about other cities and countries around the world. In learning about the weather, they also become aware of how the weather effects or controls our daily activities and lives.

• Students will demonstrate how to use graphs and tables to collect weather data. This will help improve problem solving.

• The evaluation of this project will be part of the overall cluster evaluation.