Weather has been hot in Victoria, Australia

  • Ms. Crowther’s reports that summer has been very hot and dry in Australia for their holiday.  They are back in school now and starting a new school year.

  • Wonder how the animals survive all the heat?
  • We wondered if they have air conditioners in their homes, businessess and schools?
  • Different seasons bring different weather….
  • Australia, England to the USA and North Carolina all have different weather yet sometime during the year they are hot and/or cold.  They have rainy days, snowy days and sunny days.
  • How much difference is there in weather in the different regions of  Australia?   We have a lot of different weather from California to North Carolina and from Alaska to Hawaii.

Beautiful Weather Across the Ocean- England and USA

What’s your day like?   Our weather is clear and sunny in Matthews, North Carolina , USA and it’s snowy and cold in Middleham in North England on January 20, 2013.    It looks like a postcard  scene with the beautiful snow in England but traffic and getting around is a problem. (see comment on previous post)  Do you love a snowy day?   Do you prefer a sunny day?

Teaching Peers About Weather

We’ve been learning about air and weather.  We’ve tracked the temperature and weather over time.  We looked at weather tools.  We read books about weather.  We got to teach out classmates about what we learned as we were reading.

  • Do you know what causes snow?  
  • How about tornadoes?  
  • Which causes more damage a tornado or hurricane?  
  • What is the type of cloud that means fair weather?

Weather Around the Globe-

During the past few weeks we’ve hear that it was very hot in Australia and cold in England with snow.   We’ve had some combinations of both places.   For January it got very warm last weekend (January 10) then during the week it got cold enough we got a little snow during the night on the grass and steps.  There was ice/snow on the windshield to be scraped off.  It rained a lot on Thursday during the day before it snowed at night.   Water was standing everywhere but now we don’t have a deficit in our water table according to the meteorologist.     It was cold and frosty yesterday (Saturday) and today.   The forecast is for it to be in the teens by Tuesday morning (that’s F) and perhaps only 30’s during the day.  It’s sunny and clear, blue skies this morning and about 42 degrees F.   It’s suppose to be a nice day before the Arctic blast comes down from Canada.

Global Connection with Wildfires

We made a connection to Australia this week when we heard about the wildfires there.  This past summer here we heard a lot on the news about wildfires in some states in the western United States.  

We wondered how many were caused when lightening struck during a storm?  

How many had high winds?  

Was the humidity just right to keep them burning so long?

 What effect does it have on people and animals that live in these areas in the United States and Australia?

  •   We know homes were destroyed for both people and animals.

 

What is the weather doing where you are?  

Can you explain the water cycle?

Global Warming- What do you believe?

You hear a lot about global warming.  Which of these are true we wonder?   We need to read more to find out which source is correct.

Do you know of evidence that proves this is happening?

We read it in some books and on some websites but……

We also read that it’s just something that environmental groups and some people are saying.  This is were we have to read and think very carefully and compare and contrast evidence.