Week 14: Air

Week 14: Air
Weeks 13, 14, and 15 make up a three-week cycle about air. Currently, you are in Week B: Teacher As Scholar.

This week you should refer to the resources listed under Readings & References, and you need to complete the assignments listed under Assignments & Rubrics. This week’s assignments focus on…

Individual:

Posting questions about air, then finding articles and web resources to build knowledge and background.
Helping teammates to answer their questions.

Team:

Answering the essential questions about water with your teammates.

Readings & References
Read: The atmosphere, "air sphere," is the envelope of air that surrounds the whole earth. When you look at the earth from space, you usually see lots of clouds. Rain and snow are often falling underneath the clouds, but you need a radar to see them.

Some places on Earth (like the poles and the equator) are almost always covered by clouds. If you look at the globe, you can see the line of clouds across the middle that closely follows the equator. There are also clouds over the jungles of Brazil. Lines of clouds along the leading edges of storms can be seen in the north and south Pacific and over North America. Other places, like the deserts in the American Southwest, are almost cloud-free.

Review: Earth at Hand, pp. 90 and 103, and "Gone with the Wind," pp. 104.

Read: On your own, read about the following topics related to the study of the air.

Climate/weather
Do plants eat air?
Water cycle
Global warming (ecosystem - stability)
Clouds and energy (Do clouds make it warmer or cooler?)
Seasons and energy distribution

Read: Some related National Science Education Standards and Project 2061 Benchmarks for Elementary Science Education

Air is a substance that surrounds you, takes up space, and whose movement is felt as wind.
Some events in nature have a repeating pattern. The weather changes some from day to day, but things such as temperature and rain (or snow) tend to be high, low, or medium in the same months every year.
Clouds and fog are made of tiny droplets of water.
- Water cycle in the atmosphere
- Evaporation - condensation
- Water can be solid or gaseous (water vapor)
- Changes in substances
Weather changes from day to day and over the seasons.
- Wet/dry seasons
Weather can be described by measurable quantities such as temperature, wind direction and speed, and precipitation.
Wind shapes and reshapes the earth's land surface by eroding rock and soil in some areas and depositing them in other areas, sometimes in seasonal layers.
- Changes in the earth (slow and fast)

Recommended Web Sites:

Assignments & Rubrics
You will work individually and in teams to address air during this three-week cycle. Use the links below to access the assignments and rubrics.

Week B: Teacher As Scholar - Individual
Earth Sphere Scholar Assignment & Rubric
You will post your questions about air and Earth system science, find articles and web resources to build your knowledge and background, post your resources with annotations to Resource Space, and use what you have learned to answer your own questions and those of your teammates.

Week B: Teacher As Scholar - Team
Essential Question Scholar Assignment & Rubric
You and your teammates will address the essential questions about air.

How do you study air?
How does air change?
What causes air to change?
How does water exist in air?
How does air help living things?
How do we know about weather?

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