Lesson 13 of 15 · Earth Systems

Experiment⭐ 30 XP🌋 Rock Realm

Reading a Weather Map

🧪Lab Brief #13

Earth Systems.

🎯 Your mission

Set it up. Test it. Be amazed.

⚡ The twist

The slowest changes are the biggest ones.

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Mind = Blown

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

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Make a hypothesis first

Predict: which will erode faster?

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

Tap a word to see its definition.

Materials Needed

printed weather map
coloured pens

Safety First

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

Steps

Step 1 — Read

Read the explanation above and note the two key terms before you start.

Step 2 — 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 — Observe

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

Step 4 — Record

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

Check Your Understanding

Question 1

1 of 2

Closely spaced isobars mean wind that is:

How sure are you going to be?😐 maybe

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Where you see this in real life

This is shaping the ground you walk on, slowly, every single day.

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Stretch Challenge

Try this in real life 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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