Thursday, December 8, 2011

Air masses, fronts, and wind

The past few days we have been investigating air masses. Air masses have the same characteristics (temperature & moisture content) as the surface they form above. These air masses move around the globe, eventually colliding into eachother forming a front. Check out the following site for more information
http://ww2010.atmos.uiuc.edu/(Gh)/guides/mtr/af/home.rxml

Our final activity of the day required students to report the weather based on a map. Test your knowledge @ http://fur.ly/6evg

Practice: None

Thursday, December 1, 2011

Yikes!

What a crazy week this was! I appologize for not having any updates during this week. Let's catch you up...

We have spent the previous four days learning about the greenhouse effect. Greenhouse gases (like carbon dioxide, methane, & water vapor) trap heat from escaping our atmosphere. As more greenhouse gases are put into our atmosphere from human society, more heat is being trapped and this causes an increase in temperature.

Students have spent time exploring an interactive that teaches them more about the sources of greenhouse gases and the signs (impact) that the greenhouse effect is occuring. Check it out here: http://dsc.discovery.com/convergence/globalwarming/interactive/interactive.html

Tomorrow we are having an assessment on these ideas.