Students in the fourth grade can learn more independently than younger children and are capable of reading and writing complex sentences and paragraphs. To get children started learning about weather, let individuals or small groups choose an interesting weather topic to research. Some students may require a topic list for assistance in brainstorming. Provide Internet resources and science books at an appropriate level. Help the students write short, factual research papers that summarize their findings.
With their individual research in mind, work with the class as a group to formulate questions about the weather. Children may have queries about the causes of weather or local weather patterns that effect their daily lives. Write the questions down and help children choose which ones are testable hypotheses. Explain the role of the hypotheses in motivating scientific experiments. Once one or several hypotheses are chosen, discuss how to conduct an experiment to test these predictions. You may also collect weather predictions from other sources, such as the newspaper or a television weather service.
Familiarize the class with data collection equipment and strategies. Demonstrate the proper use of a thermometer, barometer, anemometer (measuring wind speed) and rain gauge. Have each child keep individual data records with appropriate units. Chart data together in graphs and diagrams to look for patterns. To approach other hypotheses, students may need to record qualitative data. Students can draw or photograph clouds, rainbows and other weather formations. Encourage children to keep a weather journal, recording their own experiences with weather along with their daily measurements.
After a period of data collection, work as a group to analyze trends in the data. Check these trends against the class's and newspaper's predictions. Discuss some possible reasons why predictions did or didn't come true. Be sure to remind students that even failed hypotheses are useful for science. Once the data collection project is complete, have students display their results in weather-themed posters. Children may want to decorate their projects with photographs, drawings and charts. You may even intersperse the scientific data with weather-themed poems and stories for a multidisciplinary presentation.