Introduction: Rain, rain, go away! Have you ever had to change plans due to the weather? Has severe weather ever cancelled an event? Do you know what to do for a weather emergency? The local news station needs our help to inform the community about weather, especially severe weather.

Task: You and your group have been chosen to be a part of the Middle School Meteorology Storm Team that will become weather experts. Not only will you understand weather, but you will also research a severe weather topic. As a storm team, you will create a poster, PowerPoint and brochure to help inform and educate others about this severe type of weather.

Task

1. Becoming a weather expert. Complete this worksheet individually in the computer lab.
2. Gather weather information for a five-day period for Omaha. Record your data on this worksheet. Prepare a graph by hand to show weather trends. Use Excel to make a graph of this data as well.
3. Gather climate information on this worksheet. Use this information to prepare a graph both by hand and in Excel.
4. Research the weather phenomena assigned to your group:

Group 1	Tornados
Group 2	Hurricanes
Group 3	Floods
Group 4	Thunderstorms
Group 5	Hail
Group 6	Blizzards

5. Meet as a group. Each of you will need to be able to educate the audience on your natural disaster. Determine who is creating the PowerPoint, the brochure and the poster.
6. Your middle school storm team will present their project to the community (the class).

Resources:

Tornados:

http://ww2010.atmos.uiuc.edu/(Gh)/guides/mtr/svr/torn/home.rxml

http://www.fema.gov/kids/tornado.htm

Hurricanes:

http://ww2010.atmos.uiuc.edu/(Gh)/guides/mtr/hurr/grow/home.rxml

http://www.fema.gov/kids/hurr.htm

Floods:

http://www.fema.gov/hazards/floods/flood.shtm

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/infocus/floods/science.html

Thunderstorms:

http://www.factmonster.com/ipka/A0875669.html

http://www.fema.gov/rrr/talkdiz/thunder.shtm

Hail:

http://www.erh.noaa.gov/er/cae/svrwx/hail.htm

Winter Storms/Blizzards:

http://teacher.scholastic.com/activities/wwatch/winter/index.htm

http://www.fema.gov/rrr/talkdiz/winter.shtm

All severe weather:

http://teacher.scholastic.com/researchtools/researchstarters/weather/index.htm (Scroll down the page to find all the resources)

http://www.srh.noaa.gov/oun/severewx/safety.html

Evaluation:

You will be evaluated on the following:

Completion of worksheets.

Rubric:

Poster

PowerPoint

Brochure

Oral Presentation

Conclusion:

Hopefully you now have a better understanding of weather, especially severe weather. Here are a few things that you can do at home to extend what you have learned:

1. Make your own barameter
2. Make your own weather forecasting tools!
3. Find our how air pressure can even affect a baseball game
4. Collect the weather maps from your newspaper for one week.  Glue or staple each one on a sheet of paper.  After each day, make a prediction what the weather patterns well be for the next day.  Check the weather map to see if you are correct.