Engross children in the science of weather by teaching them cloud dynamics through creation of their "own" cloud. Completing this project requires a flashlight, matches, warm water, a jar, a plastic bag of ice that fits over the jar's mouth and a sheet of black paper. Have students place the jar on the black paper. Fill the jar one-third with warm water. Light the match and hold the match over the mouth of the jar. Drop the match into the jar after it burns for a few seconds. Before the heat from the match escapes, cover the jar with the bag of ice, ensuring the plastic completely covers the jar's mouth. Shine the flashlight into the jar and note the cloud on the inside of the jar.
Students create a scrapbook of the various weather activities from around the world. They do this by cutting out wild weather articles from newspapers or printing weather articles and photos from the Internet. Focus topics into a certain kind of weather event or include wild weather activity all around the world. Have students include any strange or different weather stories that interest them, including stories of "raining frogs" or stories of huge hailstones or different kinds of ice storms. Have students create drawings and diagrams or interview a local weather expert and include these in their scrapbook. (See Resources.)
Students draw a map of their local town, county, state or a region of the world in which they express an interest. Instruct them to detail the weather patterns of the area and include the direction of the jet stream at a particular time of the year. Ask them to map out the direction from which storms usually appear and the specific types of storms that appear in the region. Have students include seasonal precipitation charts colored in and a list of how temperatures vary season to season.
Have students research the La Nina and El Nino ocean currents found in the Pacific Ocean at various times throughout history. Have students draw out the currents with colored pencils to show the differences in ocean temperatures. Students then write reports on how these changes affect weather globally. This project entails creating maps, developing charts of the recorded currents and researching on the Internet for the weather patterns created from these two changing Pacific Ocean currents. (See Resources.)