Lesson Plan: Everyone Knows It's Windy

Grade: 4th
Subject: Science
Standard 2, Objective 1: Observe, measure, and record the basic elements of weather.
Website: http://www.uen.org/Lessonplan/preview.cgi?LPid=11087
Students will learn about wind. They will create an instrument to measure wind, an anemometer.

Materials that are needed:
Five 3 ounce paper Dixie cups
Two straight plastic soda straws
Pin
Scissors
Paper punch
Small stapler
Sharp pencil with an eraser
*Additional Resources- Students can bring in weather reports from newspapers, or weather websites can be looked up in the classroom to check weather locally or all over the world.

1. Explain to students that wind is an important element of weather, and that the speed of wind can help to predict the weather. Define wind speed to students, and explain that knowing wind speed and air pressure helps meteorologists forecast when an approaching storm will arrive or how long the weather in an area will remain.

2. Explain to students what an anemometer is, and that they are going to make their own!

HOW TO MAKE AN ANEMOMETER (This comes directly from website)
1. Using the paper punch, punch one hole in each of four Dixie cups, about a half inch below the rim.
2. Take the fifth cup. Punch four equally spaced holes about a quarter inch below the rim. Then punch a hole in the center of the bottom of the cup.
3. Push a soda straw through the hole of one cup. Fold the end of the straw, and staple it to the side of the cup across from the hole. Repeat this procedure for another one-hole cup and the second straw.
4. Now slide one cup and straw assembly through two opposite holes in the cup with four holes. 5 Push another one-hole cup onto the end of the straw just pushed through the four-hole cup. Bend the straw and staple it to the one-hole cup, making certain that the cup faces in the opposite direction from the first cup. Repeat this procedure using the other cup and straw assembly and the remaining one-hole cup.
5. Align the four cups so that their open ends face in the same direction (clockwise or counterclockwise) around the center cup. Push the straight pin through the two straws where they intersect. Push the eraser end of the pencil through the bottom hole in the center cup. Push the pin into the end of the pencil eraser as far as it will go. Mark one of the four cups with an “X” so you can count how many times it goes around in one minute.

Because we live in Utah, and the weather is kind of crazy, if there is no wind outside to do the activity, feel free to use a fan. It has the same effect. Have students take notes on what they learned and how many times their anemometer rotates in one minute.

Compare daily readings of how fast the wind is going, and discuss in class what the differences in wind speed means.

The YETC

I really enjoyed going to the YETC. I learned so many new things that I didn't even know existed before. I am so excited that as teachers we have so many things available to us, that we can use for free in our classrooms.

One thing that I am particularly excited for is the world encyclopedia that is online. I thought that was so neat! You could be teaching history in your classroom and then the students could actually see it. I think that is so fascinating. Another thing that I was really interested in were the podcasts. I have always seen those on itunes, but I have never looked at them or known what they were. Since going to the YETC, I have looked around in them and have found some really neat ones.

I think the YETC is a fabulous resource that we have on campus. We are so lucky that we have something like this, that we are able to use just because we are students here. I will in the YETC a lot during my time here at Utah State. Thanks for taking us there!

UEN, yay!

I have really enjoyed exploring the uen website, I am so excited about it! I think that there are a lot of awesome resources on there for teachers. As a future teacher, I find it very helpful to have the curriculm on the site and many lesson plans that fit perfectly with it. I know that there is a pressure for teachers to stick their lesson plans very close to the curriculm, the way the website is set up, it makes it very easy to do that. I am grateful to all of the talented teachers who have added their lesson plans to the website, they are so kind to share with everyone!

For my lesson plan, I have narrowed it down to either 6th grade social studies or 4th grade science. There are so many wonderful lessons to choose from!

Reflections from Sept. 5th class...

What can I say, I am very excited to learn how to integrate technology into my future classroom. I think that it is important that students learn about technology and how to use it. Technology creates so many opportunities for students and also teachers.

By having teachers use blogs in their classroom they can share classroom teaching ideas, and lesson plans. When I am a teacher, I could create a blog so that I can let parents what is going on in my classroom and share lesson plans with other teachers. Also by having a blog, it will be a good way to save all of my memories of teaching.

As a future teacher I want to be up to date with all of the current technology. I am excited to learn new things to make teaching a little bit easier!

INST 4010

Hey! Here is my first posting for INST 4010 class.