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Weather Lab 6-8 / Week 12 / Station Day
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Week 12 · Forecast and Design

Station Day

Station Day: The Weather Lab report
// Your own forecast, and a weather-ready plan for home
⏱ about 20 min

Station Day: The Weather Lab Report

Saturday morning, the crew walks the whole family through Station Rooftop one last time.

The rain gauge, the wind flag, the cloud log, twelve weeks of readings in pencil.

"We started with one thermometer and a jar," Rocket says. "Now we have a forecast and a plan."

Raven holds up the plan. "What do you notice about where the shade falls at noon? That is our resting spot."

Rocket's aunt reads the storm page. "Interior room, thirty minutes after the thunder. Got it."

Nova hovers above the log and glows along every column at once. "Twelve weeks of evidence," she says. "Now write what it taught you."

Rocket uncaps his pen. "Weather Lab report. Final entry."

  1. A forecast begins with observations, uses models to see how conditions will change, and states its uncertainty as a chance of rain.
  2. A chance of rain is the probability of at least 0.01 inch at your spot. It is not a share of the day or the area.
  3. Heat islands make built-up areas about 1 to 7 degrees F warmer by day. Shade, plants and light colors measurably cool them.
  4. Engineers define criteria and constraints precisely, then Ask, Research, Imagine, Plan, Create, Test and Improve.
  5. Your weather-ready home plan names a cool spot, a storm-safe room, an alert habit, a neighbor list and a monitor.
◇ PRESENT THE PLAN
Walk your family through your home plan. Show the cool resting spot and explain the EPA numbers behind it.
Show the storm-safe room. Say the three National Weather Service rules: thunder means inside, interior room for high wind, higher ground for flooding.
Agree on an alert habit: who checks the forecast, and how the family hears about a heat or storm alert.
Write a short list of people to check on during a heat warning, as the National Weather Service recommends.
Choose where the monitoring thermometer goes and who records it on hot days.
Ask each family member for one improvement. Add the best one to the plan.
For a grown-up
Your student's plan uses only household materials and asks a grown-up to handle anything on a roof, ladder, hot or sharp.
Changing a roof or wall color, or planting a tree, is a decision for the adults who own or rent the home.
The heat and storm rules in the plan are the National Weather Service's own, and you can read them on weather.gov.
REPORT CHECK
  • Read the question.
  • Tap your answer.
What is the first step of the design process?
A forecast says 60 percent chance of rain. Which word matches?
What does your plan use to monitor whether it is working?
Course reviewTrue or false?
Weather is the state of the atmosphere now; climate is its long-term pattern.?
Ocean currents carry heat from the tropics toward the poles.?
NASA and NOAA name burning fossil fuels as the main cause of the rise since the mid-1900s.?
A forecast gets more certain the further ahead it looks.?
A constraint is something a design must do.?
WHY THIS EXERCISEThese five ideas carry the whole of Weather Lab.
How many weeks of readings are in your Station Rooftop log by now? Type a number.
WHY THIS EXERCISETwelve weeks of your own data is the proof behind your report.
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