Nuts About Nature – Week 6 ~ Thunder and Lightning
First, I’d like to write about a change in the class topic schedule. Because of getting a later start in the year on the Nuts About Nature classes, I have changed up the outline of the remaining classes in incorporate some more outdoor study time. This week we learned about Thunder and Lightning. Next week if the weather cooperates, hopefully we will get outside to do some nature study. It is possible some of the topics for the classes will get switched with another week depending on the weather conditions and whether or not we can get outside. I will post a new tentative scheudule soon.
Ok, now on to this week’s lesson…Thunder and Lighting!
Materials for Activities:
Blue Ice Cubes
- (water and blue food coloring frozen into cubes)
Warm water
Clear, plastic container, the size of shoebox
Red food coloring
Brown paper lunch bags
Whiteboard and Other Preparation:
Draw the three main types of lightning (what will be on notebook entries)
Place chairs in circle in main area, with chair for sun outside of circle
Talk to helper about pretending to be person on earth
Literature Resources:
Non-Fiction
Explore Spring: 25 Great Ways to Learn About Spring (Explore Your World series)
The Weather Book (Wonders of Creation, Vol. 1) (Wonders of Creation , No 1)
Weather Mania: Discovering What’s Up and What’s Coming Down
Look at the Sky and Tell the Weather
Wild Science Projects About Earth’s Weather (Rockin’ Earth Science Experiments)
The Weather Book: An Easy-to-Understand Guide to the USA’s Weather
The Essential Book of Weather Lore
Fiction
Books on Benjamin Franklin
How Ben Franklin Stole the Lightning
Benjamin Franklin: Writer, Inventor, Statesman (Biographies)
The Remarkable Benjamin Franklin
A Picture Book of Benjamin Franklin (Picture Book Biography)
Key Weather Words:
Weather
Convection
Currents
Atmosphere
Electrical Charge
Negative Charge
Positive Charge
Thunderstorm
Cold Front
Warm Front
Expand
Contract
Forecast
Internet Resources:
http://www.weatherwizkids.com/index.htm
http://www.theweatherchannelkids.com/
http://eo.ucar.edu/webweather/
http://www.scholastic.com/kids/weather/
http://www.wildwildweather.com/
http://www.kidslightning.info/sabintro.htm
Class Starters:
Read Psalm 135:7: “He makes clouds rise from the ends of the earth; he sends lightning with the rain and brings out the wind from his storehouses.”
Quote:
“There is no season such delight can bring…as summer, autumn, winter, and spring.”
– William Browne
Questions to be answered in class today: Why is spring a crazy weather time of year? What is “whiplash weather”? What causes thunderstorms? How do they form? What is thunder and lightning?
1) What is Whiplash Weather?
Have students gather in main area. There’s a new term that I’ve just recently become familiar with. It’s called Whiplash Weather. During the spring months the weather is often referred to as this. Why do you think that is so?….what does whiplash mean? The weather tends to be unstable this time of year. Spring is the hardest time of year to predict or forecast weather. What is the reason for this?…it all begins with the sun and how it works with the air. The earth is a huge place, and all encompassed (surrounded by) air.
Let’s pretend that this circle of chairs in our earth. Let’s pretend that we are the air and the sun (designate one student to be the sun which will sit in a chair outside of the circle pretending to shine on earth; and have teacher helper pretend to be person on the earth in the middle of the circle).
The air moves around the earth all the time, all over the earth, being driven by the sun (have students hold hands and move around the circle of chairs signifying the air moving around the earth). And the sun and air’s job is to try to make the temperature “even” or “moderate” all over, that is NOT an easy job to do. (stop the students for a moment)
Remember how the sun’s rays hit the Northern Hemisphere at an angle during the winter? That means the sun is lower in the sky, and so the earth doesn’t get as much of the sun’s light or heat and the air is cooler (have the teacher’s helper pretend to be cold as the student’s pretending to be the cold air move again).
Well, in spring the sun appears higher and higher in the sky (have the student pretending to be the sun stand up on the chair). Now its rays are hitting the earth more directly and make the air warm right up (have the teacher’s helper pretend to warm up). But the ground takes longer to warm up than the air; the ground is still pretty cold from the winter.
So in spring, the air and sun have a lot more work to do to even out the temperatures. The warm air that is heated by the sun and the cold air coming up from the frozen ground can bump up against each other (have students gently bump up again the chairs, the earth’s surface). That means the weather changes from warm to cold, and back again (have teacher’s helper pretend to be warm then cold then warm and back and forth).
(Have students stop and listen) These changes help clouds to grow very quickly, sometimes spring storms have such large clouds that they make huge amounts of rainfall, and sometimes lightning, hail, and even tornadoes. But remember the warm air and cold air are close together. The weather can change from sunny and warm to snowy and cold in just a few hours. This is called “Whiplash Weather”!! (have students take a seat back in classroom).
2) What is a Thunderstorm? How does it form?
In our part of the country, spring time means thunderstorm time, That’s because thunderstorms happen when lots of cold air meet lots of warm, damp air. When the cold and hot air meets, this is called convection. What happens when you take a ice cold water bottle from the fridge and set it in the hot air/sun? It sweats, or creates water, this is called condensation, right? All this sweating in the sky is great for cloud making. And as the clouds grow they tumble together and rise and collect more and more water. Those humongous, warm, water filled clouds get pushed higher and higher into the sky, where they meet with more cold air. Eventually the clouds get so full, down comes the rain. Now, a thunderstorm is basically rain with thunder and lightning. So, what is lightning and thunder? Let’s start with lightning since it comes first.
3) What is Lightning?
The energy created by the very warm air and the very cold air moving together inside of a cloud cause’s electrical energy (friction) (have kids rub their hands together and feel the heat of friction). When enough of this friction happens it’s possible that we will get lightning.
Let’s demonstrate another way, what lightning is. Have students gather in main area where carpet is. Have them take off their shoes and drag their feet about, becoming conductors of electricity. Then have the cast off their stored electricity on one another! Zap!! Have students return to classroom.
In our demonstration, you were the clouds and the spark of electricity was the lightning. Within a cloud, particles of air, dust, and water vapor crash together. Like when you stroked your feet onto the carpet, the colliding particles caused the buildup of static electricity. The charges that separate within a cloud can build up in the same way nad then jump to the ground below. We call this giant discharge of electricity, Lightning.
Lightning begins when some of the negative charges move from the cloud towards the ground. This movement starts things off, and it called the “leader”. Not only does the leader set the path for the lightning bolt, but it makes the surrounding air electrically unstable. Charges become free to move about from the cloud. A split second later, a huge amount of electricity follows the leader’s path. Electrons in the unstable air drain into the ground below and then shoot back up into the sky. This rapid and major release of electricity from the air to the ground and back produces a huge flash of lightning. Lightning is very dangerous; you should never be outside when it is around. Just imagine the small spark, you couldn’t even visibly see, that you created from rubbing your feet on the ground, that little shock can hurt a bit. Actual lightning is WAY more powerful. A lightning bolt heats the surrounding air to five times the temperature of the sun’s surface!!
There are three main types of lightning:
Intracloud Lightning – the kind that happens within a cloud
Cloud-to-Ground Lightning – the kind we know most about; the most dangerous kind that jumps from sky to the ground.
Intercloud Lightning – lightning leaps across a gap of clear air between two different clouds.
4) What is Thunder?
Thunder is simply the sonic boom sound of the lightning exploding into the air. Light travels faster than sound, so we see the lightning first, then hear the thunder. Think of fireworks. Or think of when you get “shocked” there is sometimes a small audible sound. Now think of how big lightning is and why is produces such a loud sound!
Let’s do something fun to demonstrate the sound of thunder. Use brown paper lunch bags to blow up and pop. Just like lightning in a cloud, the compressed air in the bag came loudly bounding out…THUNDER!
5) Convection Demonstration (warm and cold air interaction)
In this demonstration the cold air is the blue ice cubes and the warm air is the red food coloring. Fill the plastic container a little more than halfway with warm (not hot) water. Place the blue ice cube at one end of the plastic container. Then add three drops of red food coloring to water at other end. What happened to the ice cube in the warm water? What happened to the drops of red food coloring? What else did you notice?
Warm (the red) air molecules have more energy and move faster than do less energetic cold-air molecules. The speedy warm air molecules tend to move away from each other. So warm air, with its molecules space further apart, is lighter than cold air, with its sluggish closer spaced molecules. This causes warmer air to rise, and colder, heavier air to sink. This up and down movement of air due to differences in temperature is called convection currents.
6) Bible Lesson –
The Bible lesson will be sent this week as part of your nature challenge.
7) Notebook Entries
Types of Lightning – Draw a thunderstorm scene, noting the three main types of lightning.
Nature Challenge
Bible Lessons
- Look up and read Job 38, pay close attention to verse 35
The actual path of a lightning bolt appears to be crooked and haphazard. However, Job 38:35 reminds us of the Creator’s detailed control of nature. He even opens up the conducting path for the electrons: “Do you send the lightning bolts on their way? Do they report to you, ‘Here we are’”?
- What is lightning good for?
Read the following linked article, and come ready to explain to me why it is that we really need lightning. The next time lightning is crackling across the sky, remember to thank God for his provision of our essential nitrogen.
