6 Resources To Teach Kids About Weather And Climate During The Coronavirus Shutdown

Everyday more states, counties, and local jurisdictions are issuing “shelter in place” mandates and closing schools for the rest of the Spring semester. Though drastic and disruptive to all of us, they are absolutely the right calls and probably should have come earlier in the COVID-19 coronavirus crisis. While some schools continue with digital or online learning, other districts may not have that capacity so parents may be looking for educational resources. I am the director of the University of Georgia’s Atmospheric Sciences program and the former president of the American Meteorological Society (AMS). From these lenses, I am well aware of the fact that weather and climate are very popular subjects among K-12 students (adults too). Here are 6 online weather-climate resources that you might find useful for kids during the coronavirus shutdown.

JetStream. One of my favorite online resources is the JetStream, an online weather school, produced by the National Weather Service. While the site does not get into the rigorous calculus and physics based material representative of most collegiate level meteorology or atmospheric sciences programs (see my previous Forbes piece on that), it is probably at the just the right qualitative level for 4-12 grade learners. It provides clear descriptions and diagrams to teach about basic meteorology. It is also refreshing because it goes beyond cloud types (there are more than four) and fronts (weather is caused by more than these) that I often see in elementary or middle school science curriculum standards. I first became interested in meteorology as a 6th grader after doing a science project at North Canton Elementary School called, “Can A 6th Grader Predict The Weather?” AMS data suggests that many meteorologists become interested in the field in the middle school years. These can be formative years for budding young scientists.

NOAA Resources. The National Weather Service’s parent agency is the National Oceanic and Atmosphere Administration (NOAA). NOAA offers a very good selection of websites, activities, and links on its educational page. I highly recommend the Young Meteorologist program and an introduction to Owlie. For climate, the “Teaching Climate” section at the Climate.gov website is wonderful. Students should start here, in my opinion, for a very credible introduction to climate-related material. Frankly, many adults would benefit from that portion of the website too.

Professional Society Resources. The American Meteorological Society (AMS) is the largest weather-focused professional organization in the nation. It has resources dedicated to students and educators. Its website is a “must-bookmark” for a plethora of neat online resources far beyond what I can cover in this article. K-12 educators will be particularly interested in the Project Atmosphere, Project Ocean, and DataStreme programs. These efforts are sustainable and can be participated in year-round. The National Weather Association (NWA) also has a very useful website with educational links and information on collegiate programs in meteorology.

Crowdsourced Programs. The Globe Program is an outstanding program with a very long legacy. The program website notes that, “The Global Learning and Observations to Benefit the Environment (GLOBE) Program is an international science and education program that provides students and the public worldwide with the opportunity to participate in data collection and the scientific process, and contribute meaningfully to our understanding of the Earth system and global environment.” It is a comprehensive program and one of the pioneers, in my view, of the recent wave of crowdsourced science efforts. The CoCoRaHS program is another favorite of mine. This program allows you or the kids to become weather observers. Rainfall, snow, and hail reports can be entered daily and plotted on regional, state, and national maps. I am an observer in this program, but I have been intermittent in my observations (shhhhh, don’t tell).

The WeatherStem network of meteorology observations is another amazing resource. These sites allow you to monitor weather information in real-time, but here is the awesome part of the program. There are weather lessons linked to the observations and to other contemporary topics including COVID-19 or your favorite sports team. You should definitely check this page out, particularly the Scholar part of the website.

NASA resources. As a former scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, I am very aware of the numerous cool resources that NASA offers in the K-12 education world. NASA is a federal agency that excels in educational and public outreach. Here are a few of the resources that I would definitely recommend for my own kids:

1. NASA S’Cool - an engaging website about clouds and includes some really neat crowdsourcing opportunities.
2. Earth Observatory - a great site to learn about the Earth as a system and to see contemporary examples of how we can learn about the Earth from the vantage point of space.
3. Worldview - a more advanced site that allows the visitor to view the Earth from the multiple perspectives in real-time.
4. Climate Kids - a good stop for elementary-level information about weather and climate.

UCAR. The University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR) flies under the radar to the public, but those of us in the weather-climate community know how vital it is for our community. The UCAR Center for Science Education has a wealth of resources for students and teachers. I am also particularly fond of the Comet MetEd modules made available by UCAR. I use them often in my classes at the University of Georgia. While they may be a bit advanced for some in the K-12 range, advanced students and high school learners may find the large range of modules interesting and useful.

I clearly could not list all of the great resources out there, but I did include several links that have comprehensive listings. If you find that these resources produce budding “weather geeks” as we are affectionately called, then I would also invite you to check our Weather Channel podcast Weather Geeks.

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