Homemade Weather Instruments (I)

For those K12 families...these are some of what are made for Science3.  I had a 3rd grade student last year and am familiar with the curriculum and so decided early on that we were going to make these instruments BEFORE school started.  :-)  One more thing to help the 1st week or 2 of school to go a little more smoothly!  This is just three of the projects.  We'll get to the rest of them on Thurs. and Friday I hope!

Thermometers

http://www.energyquest.ca.gov/projects/thermometer.html

The one on the left worked great...the one on the right...not so much.  Still haven't figured out why.

5th grader missed out on this kind of thing so he likes to join us whenever possible.  :-)

3rd grader enjoyed the process...for the most part...even if he did have to get his fingers dirty with the clay.  :-)  Oh, he's getting lots better.  Anyway, his was done "first" so he had his hands around the bottom trying to warm up the water.  The bottle began to steam up and etc but the liquid did not expand and move up the straw.  So, decided that we'd get the hair dryer out.

  

Ha!  Talk about a fast reaction.  He had it on for about 3 seconds and the liquid about came out of the top of the straw.  ☺  We did put the 3rd grader's into the freezer and then brought it out to the hair dryer and that was the one time we saw it work.  We put them up in the window sill to watch what would happen when the sun started to shine on them.  The 5th grader's did very well throughout the day...moving up the straw in the hot part of the day and down the straw when the sun stopped shining on it so much.  The 3rd grader's...nothing.  So, if it doesn't work for you...try again.  :-)

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Wind Vanes

 http://www.education.com/activity/article/wind_vane_first/

 

We didn't have much wind yesterday so good that we are keeping these around for a bit.  

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Anemometer  

Cup Anemometer: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=bring-science-home-wind-speed

Well, this took a little more time and was a bit more difficult than I expected.  3rd grader, partly due to his personality, ended up doing very little of it himself.  5th grader was a bit more independent.  It's not all that easy to keep those straws horizontal and to staple them.  ☺

We've yet to have enough wind to "try out" our homemade wind instruments.  

 Here is another type of anemometer you could make if you feel so inclined.  It's a neat way of doing it!

Ping Pong Ball Anemometer:  http://wxteacher.com/anemometer.html

Let me know how it works if you do!

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