Earth Science: Weather Experiments Week

We've been battlings colds this week, which has taken all of us down one at a time.  I've been pretending to play nurse but I was the 2nd one that got it, so I've failed miserably!

Part of last week got ended abruptly (though we will/did eventually play catch-up.)  I don't do sick or nurse very well, and am anxious to get back to our schedule program!

For years, I've had at least two Little Labs Weather Kits kicking around the house.  Ketchup used one, and I think this week Giraffe will pull out the other.  

So this week, I figured we'd play it slow and catchup what we missed (and fill in the blog) and work on some ways to measure the weather we're seeing.  Stay tuned and I'll add in our devices and experiments throughout the week as we go.  Hopefully we'll get a good variety of weather, that doesn't involve snow (personal bias!) and we'll have fun with it.  Stay tuned!

Monday

So Giraffe, is still under the weather but has little bursts of energy, so we used one of them to check out explore measuring temperature.  Not in the mood to re-invent the thermometer, we used a super big thermometer that I had purchased years ago at Lakeshore LearningI had to run out to the store so we got our super big thermometer and put it on the back deck (in the shade.) About 20 minutes later, when we got back, I had her take a look at it and it showed 61F.  We decided to take an extra reading put the thermometer on the front porch in the full beautiful, glorious sun and it read 76F.

Tuesday

We've got some more bad weather coming in tonight and tomorrow.  Hoping to make some tools today for use tomorrow.  She is still not feeling 100% but she is definitely on the mend.  Today we'll be building an Anemometer and Rain Gauge from the Weather kit.  We've also been identifying them in various locations when we go on drives - sometimes on phone poles, sometimes on buildings - just so she can see them truly in action.

Anemometer, Rain Gauge & Weather Vane

Discovering Humidity

 So with the Humidity detector, we filled a glass with cold water and just set it out to get an idea of how much humidty was in the air.  This was after only a few seconds, and considering the rain we're expecting - we're pretty sure it's accurate.

Wednesday

Yesterday while working with the Anemometer, Weather Vane and teeny tiny Rain Gauge in the kit, we made our own rain gauge because we knew it would hold more water and was less likely to blow away.  The empty Rain Gauge was shown on Tuesday right after we made it, but it was too windy to leave outside (15 mph winds)  It did rain a little over night which we didn't record, and it also rained a good deal of the morning (also not recorded,) but as luck would have it, we arrived back from the doctor's just before the heavy rain fell and Giraffe managed to get the gauge out in the nick of time! :)

Homemade Rain Gauge (marbles for added weight)

Just under 2 inches in 2-ish hours

In just over two hours (between 4:25 and 6:30pm) this was the amount of rain we caught.   Giraffe was pretty happy with the results of her rain gauge. We'll just empty it to the bottom line, and put it out again.