Math: It’s Everywhere!

Math in the World: Weather

Aim:                 How do we use math when tracking the weather?

Objective:         On a daily basis, students will use mathematical concepts to track the weather.

                        Note: This lesson is an on-going lesson.  Each day, students will track the weather and compile mathematical information.  The lesson should take about 5-10 minutes of your class’ day.

Materials:         Internet

Do Now:          Students will look up the weather on the internet.

http://www.weather.com

This is the all-inclusive weather site!  Students can find out the current weather of their hometown as well as anywhere in the world.  There is a plethora of information pertaining to any aspect of the weather and its history and habits.  Teachers can print lesson plans about the weather.

By inputting the zip code of the school, students will find out the weather temperature for that day. 

Note: You can have the children record the “high” temperature for the day.  For a more advanced approach, the students can find the average of the high and low temperatures.  “Weather.com” also provides the temperature at that very moment, so that is a valid temperature choice too.

Procedure:        Each day, students will record the weather temperature in their math notebooks.  Teacher will ask students,

                        What is the difference in the temperature of today and yesterday?

                        How did you find your answer? (Answer: subtraction)

                        What is the average temperature for today and yesterday?

                        How did you find your answer? (Answer: Add the two temperatures and divide by 2)

Activity:            At the end of each week, students will be responsible for finding the average temperature of the week.  Students can then graph the temperatures in a bar graph.

Assessment:   Informally, Teacher will assess student contributions to weather discussion.  Teacher will assess student work in math notebooks.

Sample Student Work & Students at work! (Click on the Thumbnail to enlarge the photo)

For more information, please contact April Paine at april_paine@hotmail.com