Reading a Weather Map

Lab Brief #13

🎯 Your mission

Set it up. Test it. Be amazed.

⚡ The twist

The slowest changes are the biggest ones.

What you'll learn

Lines joining places of equal pressure are isobars. Where they crowd together the wind is strong; where they are far apart it is calm. Low pressure usually brings cloud and rain, high pressure settled weather.

Key words

isobar
A line on a weather map joining points of equal air pressure.
depression
An area of low pressure, usually bringing cloud, wind and rain.

Make a hypothesis first

Predict: which will erode faster?

Say your guess out loud — then find out if you were right.

Get ready

🧰 What you need

printed weather map
coloured pens

⚠️ Safety first

Have an adult check your set-up before you start, and tidy everything away afterwards.

Step 1 of 4 · Read

Think about what you just learned: say what "isobar" and "depression" mean in your own words before you start.

Step 2 of 4 · Do

Take a weather map and mark the areas of highest and lowest pressure, then predict the wind strength in three places from how close the isobars are. Check your predictions against the next day's report.

Step 3 of 4 · Observe

Record what actually happened, including anything that did not match what you expected.

Step 4 of 4 · Record

Write a conclusion that answers the question this lesson opened with, and state your uncertainty.

Question 1 of 2

Closely spaced isobars mean wind that is:

How sure are you?😐 maybe

Question 2 of 2

Low pressure usually brings:

How sure are you?😐 maybe

Mind = blown

🪨 Every grain of sand on every beach used to be a mountain.

Nice work!

You got 0 of 2 right.

Next: Mining Has Costs Above Ground All lessons

🎯

Next Smart Experiment

We'll pick an experiment that matches exactly how you're thinking right now.

✨ More to explore

🌍 Where you see this in real life: This is shaping the ground you walk on, slowly, every single day.

🏆 Stretch challenge (try it this week): Find a rock outside and try to guess how old it is.

👨‍👩‍👧 For the dinner table: “What's the slowest change you can think of?”

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