Event-Based
Science is a new way to teach middle
school science. It is an award-winning,
standards-based program in which
newsworthy events establish the relevance
of science topics; authentic tasks create
the need-to-know more about those topics;
and lively interviews, photographs, Web
pages, and inquiry-based science
activities create a desire to know more
about those topics.
Tornado!
is an Event-Based Science module about
weather. It uses the 1994 Palm Sunday
tornado that struck the Goshen United
Methodist Church in Piedmont, Alabama, to
establish the context for exploring
weather concepts. Tornado! places
your students in one of six different
National Weather Service Forecast Offices
in the Midwest. As the staff of the
forecast office, students acquire then use
their knowledge about tornadoes, high and
low pressure systems, fronts, weather
radar, and dew point to track a developing
severe weather situation. When conditions
worsen, your students will record, then broadcast emergency warnings to
their surrounding
communities.
As with all
Event-Based Science modules, much of the
information that students need to complete the task
is provided in the pages of Tornado!.
However, your students will do a better job if they
have information about the communities around their
weather stations. They will also get a better feel
for what it's like to work in a forecast office if
they see real-time warnings as they are posted by
the weather service.
Below are some World-Wide Web
sites where these kinds of information are
available. Click on the highlighted words and be
instantly linked with helpful
information.
A "pdf" file containing web
sites, books, material lists, and correlations with
National Science Education Standards.
Use the
BACK button in your browser to return to
this page.
One way to
engage your students in the topic of tornadoes is to
have them support families who were directly affected
by a recent tornado. Begin your search for ways to
help with these two organizations:
(Links are checked monthly. They were working
on the date of the last update.)
Current
Weather Warnings
This site posts all severe weather warnings that
are currently in effect throughout the United
States. The wording of these announcements will
help you word the warnings you "broadcast" to
the areas surrounding your forecast
office.
Tornado
Data by State This site presents a chart of the
average number of tornadoes, and tornado deaths for each
state from 1961 to 1990. It also reports the number of
tornadoes per 10,000 square miles for each state.
Today's
Weather Forecast
This site contains the official US Weather
Service forecast for the lower 48 states and links to other
real-time weather-related data.
USA
Radar
This site contains the current
weather-radar map of the United
States. Be sure to try the looping option.
SSEC
Realtime
DataThe Space Science and Engineering
Center (SSEC) is a global leader in the
analysis and distribution of
geostationary satellite data. This page
presents pictures intended solely for
qualitative analysis of global weather.
The picture sets at this site represent
just a portion of the digital
scientific data available in real time
at SSEC.
Surface
Weather Map
This site contains a surface weather
map of the United States with reports
from selected U.S. Weather Service
Forecast Offices. The symbols on this
map are similar to the ones in the
Make the Code, Break the Code!
science activity in
Tornado!.
USA
Today
How to Read a Surface Weather Map
This site
will also help students with the Make the
Code, Break the Code! science activity in
Tornado!.
U.S. Census
Bureau
Maps and population information that will
help you to better understand the community around your weather
station.
Tornado!
is an Event-Based Science module about
weather. It uses the 1994 Palm Sunday
tornado that struck the Goshen United
Methodist Church in Piedmont, Alabama, to
establish the context for exploring
weather concepts.
Click
here to use Google News to search and
browse 4,500 continuously updated news
sources for breaking news about
tornadoes
