A few months ago, a fellow teacher told me about a wonderful opportunity called the Lift-off Institute. She asked me if I would be interested in spending a week in Houston, Texas and attending the institute. I applied and was accepted. In mid-July 2011, I attended a week, which presented so many amazing ideas. I was very eager to come back to school and implement some of the lessons I was exposed to.
One of the activities we did was about forecasting hurricanes. It was a simulation-type activity of what occurs in a hurricane center. Students are divided into small groups of four to five students and are given team names such as Alpha, Beta, Charlie, etc. The teacher sits at a main table serving as the data center. The students become meteorologists and are assigned jobs such as lead meteorologist, hurricane tracker and hurricane advisor. Some roles are assigned to more than one student on the team. Students will need access to a laptop/pc, calculator, hurricane tracking maps (available from NOAA), and a calculator. To participate in the activity, students need prior knowledge of graphing ordered pairs (the coordinates) and geographical knowledge of the United States.
Each team is called on to come to the teacher’s table. Then, the lead meteorologist goes to the table and receives their group’s first set of coordinates and accompanying information (wind speed in knots, pressure, latitude and longitude) for their storm. They take the information back to their group. Next, the students relay the coordinates to their group. One student pair in the group will use a special cone to map out the forecast models for the storm. The other pair of students will convert the wind speed from knots to miles per hour. They may use the math formula or an online converter such as http://www.csgnetwork.com/windspeedconv.html. Once the wind speed has been converted, the hurricane advisors must decide what type of warning, if any, to issue. The team also must decide which geographical areas need to be notified. In the early stages of the activity, each group has a list of hurricane names for the season. The first group, which identifies a tropical storm, will name their storm using the first name available. Subsequent groups will choose the next available names.
Initially, I had to adopt this activity from the original one. In the original activity, a mission director out of Virginia led us via Skype. After speaking with a colleague, I decided that the teacher could give the same information but from a central location in the classroom. I called on former students to aid in my execution of this activity. If I had conducted the lesson during the school year, I would try to collaborate with another class from my district or another school district and use Skype to call out or receive coordinates.
I opened the lesson with an intro into hurricane season, which began in June. I then explained how hurricane maps are provided to the public to help them track hurricanes as they approach. I divided the students into groups. I found that this activity was very easy to adapt for all levels of learners. Once I ascertained the students’ ability to graph using coordinates, I then decided which storms to assign the group.
For example, in my lesson I used hurricanes Camille and Dolly and tropical storm Arthur. Tropical storm Arthur was short-lived and only had nine sets of coordinates reported. This storm was assigned to my lower level learners. With fewer coordinates, they had more time to experience the activity. I placed two higher-level learners with the group. They did very well. I was surprised at how well they caught on.
My other two groups were given hurricanes Camille and Dolly. Both hurricanes threatened the coastal areas within the Gulf of Mexico. One thing I should point out is that my students gave their storms a random name. It was not until the end of the activity that I revealed the real name of each hurricane. My hurricane Camille group, team Alpha, moved at a very fast pace. As an extension activity, I had this group create a table to record their data. I think I could use this extension with almost every group.
In the original lab, each group had a laptop on their table. Since I only had one available, I allowed team Alpha to use it. This was very useful in creating a table for the data collected. After completing my first attempt with this lesson with students, I would like to try it with laptops, one for each group. A fellow teacher suggested a way to communicate the data and send it to students via a wireless connection. I would like to speak to my technology director in my district to see if this would be possible at my school.
One bump in the road was that I had a few students who did not have a good geographical background for indentifying the states. Next time, I will plan a simple activity which will help reinforce graphing skills before we proceed with the hurricane tracking activity. Another observation during this lab is the need to appoint a student to help the teacher keep the coordinates organized and prevent mixing them up. When the coordinates started coming in faster, I made a conscious effort to keep make sure I did not mix the coordinates up; however, having an extra pair of hands would help considerably.
As I watched the students, each group was completely engaged. I knew it was a success when our time was up and the students wanted to do the simulation again. All of the groups were 90% or closer in their predictions. When I revealed the names of the actual hurricanes, the only one they were slightly familiar with was hurricane Camille. Students said they heard of it when it was compared to hurricane Katrina.
Overall, the lesson was a success. If I had to change anything about the content, I would pick hurricanes historical to our county. I would definitely use this lesson the next time I am teaching extreme weather.
