Atmosphere Adventures Outline

Part I

  • The Ocean of Air that we know as our atmosphere

  • What makes up the atmosphere

  • Where the weather occurs (troposphere)

  • Radiation (ultraviolet, white light, infra-red)

  • Good & bad ozone

  • The four “ingredients” of weather

  • How the sun creates and affects the ingredients and energy in our atmosphere

  • Ingredient #1: Temperature, the thermometer (and all of the other “ometers”)

  • A field trip to the beach (imaginary)

  • Ingredient #2: Wind

  • Attics and mountains

  • The cooling of the atmosphere with height

  • Air pumps and bike tires

  • Why and how the wind blows (the anemometer)

  • Why air flows from High to Low pressure

  • The Coriolus effect

  • Lake and sea breezes – mountain and valley breezes

 

Part II

  • Ingredient #3: Moisture

  • Condensation, evaporation, sublimation & deposition

  • Bathroom mirrors and glasses of iced tea

  • Perspiration and transpiration

  • Orographic lifting (lake effect and rainshadows)

  • Relative humidity and dew point (the hydrometer)

  • Clouds and cloud types

  • Precipitation types

  • Ingredient #4: Air Pressure

  • AweNold’s “pumping” air exercise

  • How much air weighs and how can we feel it (straws & balloons & strings, oh my!)

  • Measuring the weight of the air (barometer)

  • Making your own barometer (materials provided)

  • How air pressure affects the weather

  • Happy weather (high pressure) and Lousy weather (low pressure)

  • Circulation of wind around pressure systems

 

Part III

  • How to read a weather map

  • What are “fronts” and what do they do

  • Why are there seasons

  • Special weather phenomena (hurricanes, tornadoes, blizzards etc.)

  • What is Doppler radar

  • What are “El Nino” and “La Nina”

  • What is the jet stream

  • How weather forecasts are made