Storm Lab lesson plans
Each one is a class period with everything to run it: a teacher plan, a student worksheet, an exit ticket with answers, and the standards it meets. Students need no account, and a free class saves their work.
Storm Lab: What Makes a Thunderstorm?
Students make a thunderstorm from a hot, humid summer afternoon, then take its ingredients apart one at a time. A little drier air, and the result says the cap held; drier still, and only small clouds form; nothing to lift the air, and there is no storm at all. Then they fix days that make no storm, a capped spring day and a dry desert day, by changing one ingredient and predicting each result first. By the end, they can explain the three ingredients forecasters check for a thunderstorm, and why plenty of fuel is not enough on its own.
On Teachers Pay TeachersStorm Lab: Protect the Town from a Tornado
Students make a spring storm that drops an EF2 tornado, send it across a town, and count the buildings that lost their walls or roof: 7. Then they spend game money to strengthen the town and send the very same tornado again. Hurricane straps on every house change nothing: the count stays at 7, because the houses slide off their foundations instead. Bolts alone change nothing either: the walls stand, and the roofs come off. Straps and bolts together cut it to 3: every house keeps its walls and roof. Then the money runs short, and students choose which mobile homes to tie down. By the end, students can explain the load path, why building codes ask for every link, and how damage surveys rate a tornado.