For this lesson, look up the prevailing winds for each season from the Climatology Office for your state or region. If you wish, study the major factors that cause these winds. For instance, our climate in South Carolina is greatly influenced by cyclones (closed swirls of air around low pressure centers following the Earth's rotation) in winter, circling the Appalachian Mountains and moving out the Atlantic. Sometimes air circulates from the Northeast down around the west side the mountains, bringing weather from the Southwest as it comes back up through our state, but as the cyclone moves eastward toward the ocean and away from the mountains, the wind comes directly from the Northeast. In summer, the climate is affected by the Bermuda High, an anticyclone (a system centered around a high pressure area and spinning opposite the Earth's rotation) bringing air from the South and Southwest. (These systems can be illustrated on a map by making circular motions with a pointer or finger.)
Print out a blank compass rose for each child and mark first the eight compass points. Have a globe or world map handy to show that North always points to the North Pole, South to the South Pole, East where the sun rises, and West where it sets. (A source of light from one direction that allows one half of the globe to be in shadow while the planet slowly spins is a great way to illustrate this.)
Next, choose a color for each season and mark that season's prevailing winds on the compass rose.
 |
| Here the prevailing winds are illustrated by colored lines drawn around the spikes of the compass rose
For another fun weather activity to calculate wind speed, make this anemometer. We will be using it track wind speeds along with our windsocks to better understand how our site is affected by wind.
 |
No comments:
Post a Comment