Rockland-based Coast Guard cutter Thunder Bay stands by in Jonesport near NOAA weather buoy 44027 while two NDBC technicians make repairs to the buoy damaged by a storm. Image courtesy of NOAA.
Are your students having trouble visualizing the instruments used by scientists to collect data and study Earth’s climate? Try these video clips about weather satellites, weather balloons, and buoys. Although these resources aren’t interactive, they will engage students while the students are learning how scientists collect data about Earth’s climate and weather.
Kid Meteorologist (Grades K-5)
In this video clip, a student describes how her interest in observing the weather led her to volunteer at a local weather center. There she gains hands-on experience with weather instruments and learns from a practicing meteorologist how weather forecasts are made. While the video only talks about weather, many of the instruments shown are also used in climate stations.
How Weather Data Is Collected (Grades 3-5)
This video segment explores the different types of weather satellites and how they stay in orbit.
Weather Balloon Videos (Grades 3-5)
Scroll down the page to find two videos: one of a weather balloon release and one about weather balloons and the data they collect. You need a RealPlayer plug-in to play the videos.
Buoy Maintenance: Research Cruise Videos (Grades 3-5)
Observe buoy retrieval, deployment, and instrument-exchange operations. Videos produced by the Southeast Coastal Ocean Observing Regional Association (SECOORA) as part of a teacher workshop.
This article was written by Jessica Fries-Gaither. Jessica is an education resource specialist at The Ohio State University and project director of Beyond Weather and the Water Cycle and Beyond Penguins and Polar Bears. She has taught in elementary and middle school settings. Email Jessica at beyondweather@msteacher.org.
Copyright September 2011 – The Ohio State University. This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 1034922. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation. This work is licensed under an Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported Creative Commons license.
