Objectives

In this lesson, students will:

• explore how specific weather information can be useful, or sometimes necessary to sailors
• learn how a sailing vessel, like Pride II, uses the wind
• learn about global winds and currents
• learn about El Niño and examine some of the affects it has had on the world.

Appropriate Grade Levels: 4 - 8

MSPP Outcomes:

Concepts of Science

• Students will demonstrate their acquisition and integration of major concepts and unifying themes from the life, physical, and earth/space sciences.

Nature of Science

• Students will demonstrate the ability to interpret and explain information generated by their exploration of scientific phenomena.

Processes of Science

• Students will demonstrate the ability to employ the language, instruments, methods, and materials of science for collecting, organizing, interpreting, and communicating information.

Geography

• Locate places and natural features by interpreting and constructing maps using directions, legends, grid systems, boundary lines, and scales.

Peoples of the Nation and World

• Using a current event predict its impact on individuals, including oneself.

Measurement

• Students will demonstrate and apply concepts of measurement using non-standard and standard units of metric and customary units. They will estimate and verify measurements. They will apply measurements to interdisciplinary and real-world problem-solving situations.

Introduction: This lesson is designed to give students an understanding of weather, what weather is, and how weather affects sailors. By looking at how specific weather information is important to the crew of the Pride of Baltimore II, students can expand their own understanding of the importance of weather, as well as learn how a sailing ship uses the wind to reach its destinations. Then, by tying the weather into the global picture of prevailing winds and ocean currents, the impacts of El Niño can be examined.

Teacher Background Information:

This lesson can be completed in one session, but it is broken into four parts, easily facilitating two to four shorter sessions, depending on the grade and ability level of your students. Or you may choose to do only specific parts. The four parts are:

1. What is Weather?
2. Sailing Vessels and the Wind
3. Winds and Currents
4. El Niño.

The lesson can be done by individual students or small groups of students, though each student would need to complete their own worksheet. The final assignment is best done with groups of students.

Materials Needed:

For the lesson, each individual student or group of students will need:

• Internet access
• a pencil
• a copy of the worksheets
• red and blue colored pencils or markers
• a ruler

For the assignment, each group of students will need:

• a thermometer
• a compass
• a compass rose (showing the relations of North, South, East, West, and points in between, ie. NE, NW, SE, SW)

Activities

1. Students will locate and record current weather information from Baltimore, Honolulu, Hawaii, and weather information collected during Pride's passage to Hawaii. They will use this information to determine what the weather is like in each location, how the weather differs in the three locations, and try to hypothesize why the weather is different in the three locations. They will also be asked to think of reasons why specific weather information may be useful or necessary.

2. Students will examine why specific weather information is necessary to the crew of Pride II. They will learn how a sailing ship uses the wind, including the process of "tacking." They will then measure (the diagram is on their worksheet) the distances involved in tacking, and do a mathematical comparison between this length and the actual distance of the direct path.

3. Students will learn about global winds and currents. They will learn about the general movement patterns, and how this relates with hot and cold temperatures. This will be reinforced by coloring in the currents in the Ocean Currents diagram with red (for warm) and blue (for cold) colors.

4. Students will be tested on their knowledge of winds and currents. By referencing maps that are included in the lesson and on their worksheets, they will be asked to hypothesize solutions to questions such as: "If you threw a bottle into the ocean from Ocean City, Maryland, where do you think it would land?".

5. Students will learn about El Niño. They will look at Pride's route to Hawaii during January, 1998, and then look at the temperature anomaly chart for January, 1998, to find the location affected by El Niño. Then they determine whether Pride is, or was, in the area affected by El Niño.

6. Students will look at the Consequences of El Niño Web site. They will be directed to a Web site of USA Today stories on El Niño, will be asked to choose one of these stories, read it, and write a summary of it.

7. Students will be provided with average monthly precipitation data for Baltimore, and monthly precipitation data for Baltimore in 1983 and 1997, El Niño years. They will be asked to graph the data, and based on the graph, make predictions as to the affects of the next El Niño in Baltimore.

8. View the final assignment and additional activities on the last pages of the "Winds Across the Sea" lesson.

If You Wish to do More
View the Thoughtful Application/Final Assignment on this special page of the "Winds Across the Sea" lesson.

Literature Connection

Williams, Jack. USA TODAY: The Weather Book. New York: Vintage Books,1992.