Lee Ann Grimm and Extreme Weather

 Representation of a Tornado

I am wanting to teach a unit on extreme weather in my elementary classroom. At this point I do not know how many students are familiar with extreme weather and the effects that it has on them and the environment that they live in and so I thought that a great place to start would be with an "Extreme Weather 101."  I found a website by the Will Steger Foundation titled,"Extreme Weather 101."  The website included some great teaching and learning tools that I thought would be very helpful to my students and myself.

Many stories about tornadoes, flooding, snowstorms, and above and below normal temperatures have caught the nation's attention in the last decade.  The real questions are, "Is this climate change?", "Are specific weather events even linked to climate change?" and "How are instructors supposed to teach about this?"

Some of the questions that students are inquiring about include:
1. How does weather work?
2. What is the difference between weather and climate?
3. How do models work?
4.What does adaptation mean?

There are many supporting lessons for instructors to teach for various grade levels, for example, using graphs to chart climate data and also matching climate data to various locations. Another example is to have the students investigate the climate in El Nino and there are 5 activities for students using real data.

There are also various videos about extreme heat and how it is impacting urban communities and how we are adapting to temperature changes in the world. There are also pod casts that connect extreme weather to climate change and also the extreme weather in 2011.  There is a map of the United States that shows the different weather events from 1995-2011.  Supportive reading and websites are also listed for learning tools.

I thought that this website would give me and my students a great start on the extreme weather unit that I will be teaching

Source:  www.willsteger.foundation.org/climate-change-basics/extreme-weather-101