WHO PREDICTS THE WEATHER BEST?
Weather instruments, satellites, weather balloons, and computer models are all used to create weather forecasts, but the atmosphere is so large and complicated that even the best forecasts aren’t always accurate. Topics and Connections: • Making predictions • Statistics • Comparing and judging a ‘best’ with multiple criteria Materials: • paper for recording (and possibly graphing) results Directions: Teacher: • Assign students to follow weather forecasts on different television channels, newspapers, and/or radio stations. Students: • Record, each day for a week, what your weather information source predicted the next day’s high temperature, low temperature, wind, and precipitation would be. The next day, record the actual values, either from newspaper or TV records or by using weather instruments. • After the week is over, compare the various predictions with the actual weather on that day. Make a table showing the predicted and actual weather information. • Discuss your findings: Did
