This towering cumulus cloud is a precursor of a cumulonimbus, or thunderstorm, cloud. These cauliflower-like clouds result from warm, moist air rising rapidly through a cooler layer. They typically have a horizontal base and a dome-shaped upper surface. Click on image for full size (65 Kb) Image courtesy UCAR, photo by Carlye Calvin.

Classroom Activities - Weather and Atmosphere

• Feeling the Heat Students explore the urban heat island effect by collecting and interpreting data.
• Combining Clouds and Art in the Classroom An interdiciplinary lesson plan combining landscape painting and cloud identification
• Create a Tornado Create a tornado in a bottle!
• Create Your Own Cloud A cloud activity
• Create Your Own Fog An activity on making fog
• Create Your Own Lightning An activity on making lightning
• It's Up in the Air Over 30 activities covering things you (and your students!) should know about the atmosphere...
• Make it Rain! A rain activity
• Shadows... Shadows and their relationship to the time of day/season
• Three Clouds Activity One demonstration and two hands-on activities - all about clouds!
• Thunder and Lightning A simple activity
• Watch the Sky A great activity to get your students thinking about what they see in the sky
• Weather and Careers Exercise A lesson that looks at how weather affects different jobs
• Weather Crossword Puzzle A reading and puzzle exercise available at three levels

Classroom Activities - The Atmosphere and Climate

• Hurricanes and Climate Students investigate maps and data to learn about the connections between hurricanes and climate.
• Using the Carbon Cycle Interactive Game in the Classroom Through an online game, students learn how carbon cycles through the Earth system.
• Using the Very, Very Simple Climate Model in the Classroom Students learn about the relationship between average global temperature and carbon dioxide emissions while predicting temperature change over the 21st Century.
• Carbon Dioxide - Sources and Sinks Experiment with the carbon cycle!
• Paleoclimates and Pollen Conduct a classroom paleoclimate study!
• The Difference Between Weather and Climate Students graph weather and climate data to learn the difference
• Natural Records of Climate Change: Working With Indirect Evidence Students play a game to learn about indirect evidence, like those that record ancient climate changes.
• Trees: Recorders of Climate Change Collect and analyse tree ring data to discover when the Little Ice Age occured.
• Blooming Thermometers A graphing activity that allows students to discover how the timing of blooming has changed as climate changed
• Sunspots and Climate Students investigate data to discover how Earth's climate is affected by changing quantities of sunspots.
• Dark Skies: Volcanic Contributions to Climate Change Discover how volcanoes can alter the Earth's climate
• Looking into Surface Albedo Students investigate how color affects heat absorption.

Content Links

Others