Best Websites for Teaching Weather & Climate
What are some of the best websites for teaching Weather and Climate in upper elementary? While hands-on learning is SO important in teaching science, having students read and research to learn about new topics is also valuable. I’ve culled the internet to share some of my favorite websites for a Weather and Climate unit!
These websites allow students to engage with videos and interactive activities, find experiment suggestions, see photographs, and read info written on their level. As my students learn about clouds, weather tools, types of precipitation and severe weather, and learn to forecast based on weather data and observations, these websites support our study and make our weather and climate unit even more engaging! Get ready for a windy website ride as you check out some of my favorites!
At Weather Wiz Kids meteorologist Crystal Wicker helps students learn about weather, climate, and natural disasters. The site is organized with a clear navigation bar that allows students to learn about concepts of weather (forecasting and instruments, wind, clouds, climate, drought, lighting, rain and floods, temperature, and severe weather), natural disasters, and offers suggestions and ideas for experiments (like creating a tornado or cloud in a bottle, making dew and frost, observing the water cycle, and more!).
In the Kid's Zone, students can read corny jokes, learn about becoming a meteorologist, read questions other kids have asked about weather and the atmosphere along with Crystal's answers, and learn about weather folklore!
2) Scholastic Study Jams
Scholastic Study Jams are a wonderful resource for science topics like weather and climate. Students can view engaging, animated videos or informative slideshows and quiz themselves! You'll want to check out the Study Jams that fit your weather and climate unit topics, like: Weather & Climate, Seasons, A Day on Earth, Clouds & Precipitation, Weather Instruments, Air Pressure & Wind, Air Masses & Fronts, Waves & Currents,the Water Cycle, and Severe Storms (including thunderstorms, hurricanes, tornadoes, and blizzards). The videos and slideshows are also perfect for using in your lessons and showing on your interactive whiteboard.
3) Treehouse Weather Kids
Treehouse Weather Kids is an interactive website developed just for kids by the University of Illinois. I love how it provides information for students in short bites. Your students can learn about season and temperature, air pressure, wind and clouds, and types of severe weather through short, student friendly paragraphs.
The website also includes activities and quizzes, a glossary, and other suggested resources for teachers. One of my favorite activities is more like a quiz called "Forecasting Under Pressure," because let's face it, air pressure can be one of the hardest concepts in our weather curriculum! Treehouse Weather kids is truly a resource to see!
4) UCAR Center for Science Education
UCAR SciEd's mission, to "develop state-of-the-art educational experiences that connect NCAR|UCAR science to diverse learners, creating pathways towards a scientifically literate society" is clearly evident in the abundance of quality, engaging resources they have created for students and teachers.
The Learning Zone on the UCAR Center for Science Education website is where it's at for students! It serves as a hub housing all things weather and climate related including short articles for kids, engaging images and diagrams, an expansive video library, interactive games and simulations, and a wealth of amazing teacher resources all geared toward helping teach students about earth science system concepts.
Bookmark this website now! You won't be sorry!
5) National Weather Service's Just for Kids education page
I can't leave out the National Weather Service's Just for Kids education page. While some of the information that students can access may require you to set up a more guided experience or orient them to what is provided, students can use this website to become familiar with really awesome weather tools just like a real meteorologist! Students may find it fascinating that they can see weather and weather information in "real-time" and with many of the interactives, they can go back to a previous date in time. I like the "Current Weather" Conditions, Forecast Map (for the United States), Tropical Weather outlook, Climate Records and Plots, and Hour by Hour forecasts.
On the NWS Radar, students can click on different sections of the United States and see what weather is happening in different places (perfect for teaching them to predict what weather may be coming your way soon!). If you want to dig really deep, students can even look at the Climate Plots and compare current temperature to the record highs, the record lows, and precipitation to what's normal, below normal, and above normal for different locations. The data and graph analysis opportunities are RICH with this resource!
6) Climate Kids
If you haven't yet checked out NASA's website for students called Climate Kids, it is certainly worth your while. The site is divided up into several general categories including Big Questions, Weather & Climate, Atmosphere, Water, Energy, and Plants & Animals. Once "inside" each category, there’s a ton of quality resources for various topics within the category.
Students can choose from engaging articles answering questions like, What can trees tell us about climate change?, watch videos like What’s happening in the ocean?, play some really cool interactive games like Power Up! or The Climate Time Machine, or even read interviews with real people who have weather-related careers like a Systems Engineer for Environmental Satellite or a Home Energy Auditor. No surprise really, but NASA has seriously outdone themselves with this one!
GET A PERSONAL COPY OF WEBSITES AND LINKS FOR YOUR WEATHER AND CLIMATE UNIT
If you are like me, you spend way too much time looking for “the best” websites for your students that will help you meet your learning goals…maybe that’s how you ended up here! (Haha!) This list of websites for an upper elementary weather and climate unit includes some super helpful sites. Before I send my students loose on the internet for researching, I like to create a list of websites and page-specific links to share directly with my students.
In hopes of saving you some valuable planning time, I’ve actually created a PDF of my favorite Weather and Climate links for you. This link list is more detailed than what I’ve included in the blog post and is organized by the concepts that students may be researching. I’ve even included a recording sheet for types of clouds from my weather graphic organizers.
There you have it! 6 awesome websites for your weather and climate unit! I’m so excited to use these to give my students some hands-on opportunities to investigate the weather and enhance our weather unit!
