Section 3: Investigating weather

Key Focus Question: How can you make the study of the weather more open-ended and activity based?

Keywords: problem solving; weather; group work; patterns; observations; brainstorming

Learning Outcomes

By the end of this section, you will have:

  • developed pupils’ skills of observation, data collection and interpretation of weather patterns in order to predict and forecast the weather;
  • used group work to encourage cooperative learning as pupils design and construct weather instruments.

Introduction

For many people, watching the weather is an important part of everyday life. For example, farmers need to be able to judge the best time to sow their crops and fishermen need to know when to set out to sea. The weather patterns are different across Sub-Saharan Africa and rainy seasons and sunny periods will vary.

Encouraging your pupils to observe the changes and patterns – however small – will help them understand the link between the weather, people and their environment.

In this section, you will use group work to develop pupils’ cooperative and thinking skills. You will plan practical activities to encourage interaction between pupils.

Resource 4: Different environments

1. Working in groups to explore the weather