Lesson video

Hello! My name is Ms. Chorekdjian.

I'm so excited to be learning with you today.

I will be guiding you through every step of our geography lesson today.

We're going to have a great time learning together.

Let's start our learning journey.

Welcome to today's lesson from our unit called Seasons: how does the weather change through the year? This lesson is called Measuring the weather.

Your learning outcome will be to use different equipment to measure and map the weather in the school grounds.

Some of this learning is brand new, but I am here to help you.

This links back to previous learning you might have done about the weather.

You might also be able to name some weather elements and notice how it changes between seasons.

You might have also done some simple observations of the weather.

Here are the keywords that we will be using together in today's lesson.

Before we find out what these keywords mean, let's practise saying them, doing my turn, your turn.

Season.

Season.

Thermometer.

Thermometer.

Reading.

Reading.

Fair test.

Fair test.

Good job, everyone.

Let's find out what these keywords mean.

Season.

The seasons are four times of year that have different weather and they are spring, summer, autumn, and winter.

Thermometer.

A thermometer is an instrument which is used to measure temperature.

Reading.

When you take a reading, you record the measurement shown on the instrument.

Fair test.

A fair test is an investigation where only one thing is different each time.

For example, by measuring at the same place and time so only the day is different.

Here are the learning cycles that we will be working through together today.

First we will look at equipment used to measure the weather and then we'll look at recording the weather.

I'm really excited to get started today.

I hope you are too.

Let's begin.

Different equipment helps geographers to record and track the weather to look for patterns.

This helps us to know what we're going to wear and to plan appropriate activities.

So for example, if you know that it's going to be a sunny day, you might want to pack a hat and some sun cream and you might want to do an activity that's outdoors so that you can enjoy the weather.

And if you know it's going to be raining that day, you'll need to pack some wellies, a raincoat, and you might spend less time outdoors and more time indoors.

So that's what we mean by knowing what to wear and to plan appropriate activities.

So you can see it's really important that we need to observe, track, and record the weather so that we can spot these patterns.

Here is some equipment that we use to measure the weather.

There's three different pictures, there are three different types of equipment.

Have you seen any of these before? Do you know what they're called? Have a discussion with your partner and see if you recognise any of this equipment.

Also think about what they're called and if you remember the names.

Pause the video now.

How did you get on? Did you discuss with your partner if you've seen any of these before? Did you know what they were called? Let's go through them together.

First we have a thermometer, then we've got a weather vane, and finally we've got a water gauge.

Well done if you recognised any of this equipment, especially if you were able to remember what they were called.

We're going to learn more about them a little bit later on in the lesson.

First, let's have a quick check here.

Why do geographers record and track the weather? Is it A, so people know what to wear; B, to make sure they have enough time; or C, to plan appropriate activities? Pause the video here and answer this check.

How did you get on? Did you say A, so people know what to wear, and C, to plan appropriate activities? Good job! Those are the two reasons why geographers track and record the weather.

You can give yourselves a big thumbs up if you got that right.

Now, remember I showed you some equipment earlier? We're now going to go through that equipment and find out exactly what it's used to measure.

A thermometer is used to measure temperature.

That means how hot or cold the air is.

Temperature is measured in degrees Celsius and it's represented in those brackets with that small little circle and a capital C.

So just a reminder that temperature is measured in degrees Celsius.

So let's have a quick check.

Temperature is measured in, A, millimetres; B, degrees Celsius; or C, centilitres? Pause the video now and complete that check.

Good job, everyone.

How did you get on? Were you able to say that temperature is measured in degrees Celsius? Good job, well done if you did.

And remember that measuring temperature tells us how hot or cold it is.

The temperature reading on the thermometer can be affected by the time of day or season.

So for example, if you take it in the morning when the sun's just come up, it might be a little bit cooler.

If you take a reading at lunchtime when the sun is high in the sky, it might be a little bit warmer.

And then if you take it at night time it'll be cold because the sun would've gone down.

And also, for example, the season.

So the reading in summer will be a lot warmer than the reading in winter.

So those are the different things that can affect the temperature reading.

Night time is usually colder than the day time because the sun has gone down, and the summer months are usually hotter than the winter months.

So that's what we've talked about there.

I've got a picture here of three different thermometers.

The cold temperature is reading five degrees Celsius, the mild temperature is reading about 15 degrees Celsius, and then the hot temperature is around 25 degrees Celsius.

So that just gives you an idea of the different temperatures.

It's now time for another quick check.

What can affect the temperature reading on a thermometer? Is it A, the season; B, the weather; C, the weekend; or D, time of day? Pause the video here and complete this check.

How did you get on, geographers? Did you think carefully about what can affect the temperature reading on a thermometer? Did you say the season? That's correct.

Remember we said that in winter it's generally a lot colder than it is in summer.

Did you say the weather? That's correct.

So the temperature reading will be different if it's a sunny day or if it's a cold, wet day.

And did you say D, the time of day? Remember we said that the night time is a lot cooler than during the day.

Good job, everyone.

You've worked through that check really well.

I'm going to give you another big thumbs up.

Now we've learnt about the thermometer, let's look at a weather vane.

A weather vane uses compass directions to show where the wind is coming from.

The wind blows and pushes the tail of the fish.

The head of the fish points to the direction the wind is coming from.

So if we look carefully at this weather vane, you can see the compass directions are at the bottom.

We've got N, that means north; W, that means west; S, that means south; and E, that means east.

And if we look carefully at the fish at the top of the weather vane, you can see that the wind is pushing the tail of the fish and the head is showing us where the wind is coming from.

So because this fish is pointing towards S, we know that the wind is coming from the south.

There we go, and you can see that the fish is lined up, the head of the fish lined up with the S.

It's time for a quick check.

Which of these are compass directions that we see on a weather vane? Remember, we've just looked at a weather vane and we've looked at those little letters that represent each of those compass directions.

Let's answer this question.

Which of these are compass directions that we see on a weather vane? A, east; B, north; C, down; or D, west? Pause the video here and complete this check.

How did you get on? Were you able to identify which of these are real compass directions? Let's have a look at the answers.

A, east; B, north; and D, west.

Down is not a compass direction.

We use the word south.

That's represented by an S.

Do you remember that the weather vane that we looked at was pointing towards the south and that showed us that the wind was coming from the south? So well done if you got that right and you were able to recognise which of these were correct compass directions.

Good job, everyone.

You can give yourselves another big thumbs up.

Now let's look at the final bits of equipment that I wanted to talk about today.

We've looked at thermometers and we've looked at weather vanes.

Now we're moving on to a water gauge or a rain gauge.

We can measure the amount of rainfall by using a water gauge.

There you can see it slotted onto the fence.

When rain falls, it is collected in the gauge.

So it's a tube that has numbers written along the side that is placed on top of a fence.

So as it rains, that little tube is filled with water, and that water is rain water.

The reading is measured in millimetres, and millimetres is represented by two lowercase m's.

Another way we can measure rainfall is by counting and recording the number of rainy days in a certain period, such as a week.

So here's a table that shows you how I've recorded whether or not it's rained.

So on Monday it did rain.

On Tuesday it didn't rain, so I've written no.

On Wednesday it rained, so I wrote yes.

Thursday there was no rain and Friday there was rain, so I've written yes again.

So you can see there that I've measured and tracked rainfall by counting and recording the number of rainy days in a week.

And then I've totaled how many rainy days are in a week and how many dry days are in a week.

Before I show you the answer, I wonder if you can quickly look at that table and total up how many rainy days there were and how many dry days there were in that week.

Pause the video now.

How did you get on? Did you say that there was one, two, three rainy days, because it rained on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday? Well done if you got that right.

And then did you say that there was one, two dry days, because it didn't rain on Tuesday and it didn't rain on Thursday? Good job! Well done if you were able to help me fill up that table.

So you can see here that there were two different ways that we can measure rainfall, one by using a water gauge to see how many millimetres of rain falls, and another one is by tracking and recording how many wet days versus how many dry days there are in a period.

So it could be a week, or you could do two weeks or even a month.

Good job, everyone.

You worked really hard in that section.

It's now time to have a quick check here.

So these are the three different types of equipment that we've talked about today.

We've talked about a piece of equipment that measures the temperature, a piece of equipment that shows us where the wind is blowing from, and another piece of equipment that helps us record the rainfall.

What I would like you to do is to tell me which piece of equipment is used to record rainfall.

Is it A, B, or C? Pause the video now and complete that check.

How did you get on? Were you able to say that it was the piece of equipment shown in picture C that records rainfall? Good job! Were you able to remember what it's called? It's called a water gauge or a rain gauge.

Good job, everyone.

I'll give you a big thumbs up for that.

You're doing so well throughout this lesson.

It's now time for Task A.

We are going to record the weather at our school.

Decide with your geography partner what weather you will record and how you will do this.

Remember we've talked about three different types of equipment and what it records.

We've talked about a thermometer recording the temperature, we've talked about a weather vane recording the direction that the wind is blowing from, and we've talked about a water gauge which helps us record how much rain has fallen.

Discuss with your partner what you would like to record at your school and how you're going to do this.

Pause the video now and complete Task A.

Well, everyone, how did you get on? Here's what Sofia said.

She said, "I am going to record the amount of rainfall in a week.

I will use a water gauge and record how much rain falls each day of the week from Monday to Friday." So that's something you could do.

Let's see what Jacob said.

"Yes! That's a good idea, but I am going to measure the temperature using a thermometer.

I will take the temperature reading twice a day, once in the morning and once in the afternoon to see if there's a difference." So you can see that these two pupils have decided to record two different things, rainfall and temperature.

Were you able to decide what you wanted to record? Did you want to record something similar to these pupils or something different? Good job, everyone.

I'm sure you know exactly what you'd like to record at school.

Fantastic learning so far.

Let's continue with our lesson for today.

So we've looked at equipment to measure the weather.

Now we're going to move on to recording the weather.

The weather changes from hour to hour and day to day, and sometimes even from minute to minute.

There's been so many days where I've been walking to school and it's been nice and sunny and then all of a sudden it starts raining.

So that shows you just how quickly the weather can change.

We can build up a better picture of the weather pattern over time by taking weather readings at the same time and place each day.

If we do that, it means it's a fair test because only one thing is changing.

Only the day is changing.

We're keeping the time of day the same and the place that we record it the same as well.

This is a weather tree.

This weather tree shows the temperature readings from a thermometer over five weeks.

So each of those branches represents a different week and the leaves represent different days that the temperature reading was taken.

It also records pupil drawings and comments from observations of the weather that day.

So you can see that the temperature is written in degrees Celsius, it's also got pictures of rain or sun or clouds, and then it has words around it that says sun and clouds or rain.

This gives us a clear picture of the weather over time, so we can see that when we started recording the weather in the earlier weeks in May, it was a lot wetter than it was as we moved into June.

There was a lot more sunny days in June.

It is now time for a quick check here.

This is a true or false check, so that means you've got to think really carefully about whether or not this statement is true or false.

It says, recording the weather over time is a useful thing to do.

Is that true or false? Pause the video now and complete that check.

How did you get on? Did you say true? That's correct.

Recording the weather over time is a useful thing to do because it means that we can track the weather and look for patterns.

Those patterns can help us think about what we're going to wear and plan appropriate activities.

Now let's think about justifying our answer and explaining why it's true.

Is it true because A, it helps us build a picture of the weather over time so that we can wear the right clothes and plan the right activities; or B, it helps us to know which days we need to go to school and how to travel there? Pause the video now and justify your answer.

How did you get on? Did you say A? That's correct.

So recording the weather over time is a useful thing to do because it helps us build a picture of the weather over time so that we can wear the right clothes and plan the right activities.

Good job, everyone, if you worked through that check successfully.

You can give yourselves a big thumbs up.

Let's think about the equipment that we've looked at so far.

We've looked at a thermometer, a weather vane, and a water gauge, and we've discussed how each of them helps us record the weather.

Can you remember what each of these measures? Pause the video here and tell your partner.

How did you get on? Did you say that a thermometer is used to measure temperature and that temperature is measured in degrees Celsius? Did you say that a weather vane helps us to record the direction that the wind is blowing from? And did you say that a water gauge helps us collect and count the amount of rain that has fallen and that it's measured in millimetres? Good job, everyone, if you were able to remember all of that.

Some ways that you could track the weather pattern over the course of a week are by measuring: the temperature, the amount of rainfall, the direction that the wind blows from, the number of sunny days, or the number of rainy days.

Some ways that you could record the weather over the course of a week are: recording the temperature reading in degrees Celsius in a table, recording the amount of rainfall in millimetres in a table, recording the direction that the wind blows from, so north, south, east, or west, in a table, recording the number of sunny days in a tally chart, recording the number of rainy days in a tally chart, or adding drawings and observations to a weather tree.

So these are all the different ways that you could record the weather readings that you take over a course of a week.

It's now time for Task B.

So what I would like you to do is to record the weather for a week.

Use the weather you chose for Task A, so that was either temperature, wind direction, or rainfall.

Record the readings via a table, a tally chart, drawings, or observations.

And finally, write a sentence about what you notice about the weather over a week.

Pause the video here and complete Task B.

How did you get on with Task B? Here's the weather tree that we've used to record observations and drawings as well as the readings from a thermometer.

So we're looking at temperature in this example.

"From the 27th of May to the 3rd of June the weather was hot.

The temperature was between 20 to 21 degrees Celsius.

It was sunny with no clouds." So that was one example using a weather tree to record observations and temperature.

Another pupil has decided to record the number of rainy days versus the number of dry days.

"I've noticed that three out of five days were rainy.

Only two days were dry.

Most of the week was wet." So both of these pupils have chosen what they would like to record, they recorded it, and then they wrote a sentence to help explain what they saw in their observations.

Well done if you did something similar.

And like I said, you could have used a table to record your information, you could have used a tally chart, or you could have used a weather tree which includes drawings or observations.

Well done, everyone.

I think you all worked really hard using different equipment to measure and map the weather in your school.

You can give yourselves another final thumbs up.

We've now come to the end of our lesson, so let's go through a quick summary of all the learning that's taken place today.

A thermometer measures how hot or cold the air is and the reading can be affected by the time of day or season.

We can measure rainfall using a gauge or count the number of rainy days within a given time, such as a week.

A weather vane uses compass directions to show where the wind is coming from.

We can build up a better picture of the weather pattern by taking weather readings at the same time and place each day, and remember, that helps to make it a fair test.

Good job, everyone.

You've been fantastic today.

Well done for joining me and sharing your learning with me.

I'll see you next time for more geography lessons soon.

Goodbye!.