"Create a Cloud" and Connect Children to Weather and the Water Cycle

Many of the second grade classrooms in Burlington have recently investigated weather as a unit. Students typically learn about temperature and how to measure it before logging changes in temperature over two weeks along with wind conditions and cloud coverage. Inevitably, observing eyes and curious minds recognize day-to-day differences in all of these conditions. Depending on the season and the cooperation of the jet-stream, different types of clouds can be a part of this investigation as well.

The presentation linked to this blog is a fun, inter-disciplinary activity that can be shared at all primary grade levels. Before any cloud visuals are seen I take a globe from the classroom and share how the ancient Romans were the first civilization to record clouds by name, and that clouds have Latin names given to them thousands of years ago by the Romans of Italy. Romans named clouds based on their appearance, an activity that is easy to do with students as well!

For each of the slides seen above, the name of the cloud is actually faded out of the picture at first, giving students a chance to think, pair, and share their ideas about what they might name the different cloud types. Once ample discussion has been had in groups and as a class, the name is revealed and the actual Latin to English translation is given for each cloud type. Along with the names of the clouds I typically stress how clouds can be indicators of coming weather. Cirrus clouds indicate fair weather, while stratus clouds are prevalent in low pressure systems and can carry precipitation with them. The cumulonimbus cloud is of particular interest, as it is an indicator of severe weather such as thunderstorms and heavy rain here in the northeast, but heavy rain, hail and even tornadoes in other regions of the United States.

After the discussion based slideshow is over, a teacher-led demonstration of how and why clouds form in the sky is performed. The video above provides ample explanation for how to go about setting up your "cloud machine" and more detailed explanations for teachers behind the science of the cloud formation. What makes this demonstration so great is the introduction (or review!) of the different phases of matter water can easily take on (all are present in the demo) and a concrete example of how water as a gas will actually rise and later condense above the body of water it came from. While I would love to do this activity student-led, I am not about to let young students experiment with hot plates. I would love to hear how others might better demonstrate the water cycle and phase changes of matter. Please share in the comments section below!

Images used in the "Cloud Program" presentation are used under the Creative Commons free-use license. Links to the photographers and artists can be found in the SMART Software file attached by clicking on the corner object of each image.  For non-smartboard users download the PDF version.

Ain't Nothing Like the Real Thing

The classroom buzzed with excitement. Tables grouped together were neatly covered with plastic table cloths and paper towels in preparation for the grand experiment. It was the moment students had anxiously anticipated for over a week and, with just an hour in the school day remaining, it had finally arrived.

Was the new iPad cart about to be taken for a test drive? Was the virtual field trip to the rim of an active  volcano about to begin? Were students going to watch the latest Khan Academy video? No, no and no. Today had nothing to do with state-of-the-art technology or digital media. Today was about something seemingly classical from the age of the Renaissance and Leonardo DaVinci. Today students would explore anatomy in the most interactive, hands-on, multi-sensory way possible: Dissection.

While web-based, student-manipulatable models and flashy apps pop up more and more in cyberspace, none of these things can match the power of doing science. For the study of life science and the anatomy of living creatures, this is best accomplished when students are given the opportunity to dissect a formerly living being to see up-close and first hand the insides of a complex organism; whether it be a rat, fetal pig, frog, or in the case of Burlington Public School fifth graders, squid.

Real dissections:

• Provide opportunities for students to steer scientific exploration and investigation.
• Give students a multi-sensory experience that is more likely to stick in their memories.
• Engage students in skillful procedures prevalent to many potential career choices.
• Compel students to step outside their comfort zone of learning.
• Break misconceptions about size or scale of plant or animal anatomy.

Virtual dissections often tout such advantages as "cleaner than classroom dissections," with steps able to be undone should one make a mistake. Both of these arguments may be true, but are they sound arguments at all? Science is messy. From error-riddled data to the arguments of varying validity posed to explain away natural phenomena, the suggestion that science is all neat, clean and organized is fundamentally wrong!

I am not suggesting such forms of learning do not have some place in education. In fact, before performing this dissection with students, Mrs. Jamie Jaffe (to which I owe thanks and appreciation for sharing her classroom with me!) previously showed selected portions of the public giant squid dissection at the Melbourne Museum in Australia seen here. This gave students an opportunity to overcome the preliminary squeamishness around the visual appearance of a dissected squid as well as a model of professional biologists at work performing procedures they would later have to do themselves.  A few of the facts shared in the video dissection were even referenced during the actual dissection. Still, the idea that such technologies might somehow replace such opportunities in our science curriculum should be treated with great skepticism and as a disservice to our students. After all, there "ain't nothing like the real thing."