Weather and Our Atmosphere: Scavenger Hunt
by Mrs. Inoue in Cherokee County with modifications by Ms. Sussman at Dickerson Middle School in Cobb County

 

Name _____________________________ Period _______Date __________


 

Go to Earth’s Weather to find:

1. What is the difference between weather and climate? ______________
_____________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________

2. Visit the USGS Water Cycle illustration and list the three processes that
occur. ________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
The EPA has an animated version.


Learn about the
Earth's Atmosphere by clicking and answering:
3.  What is the atmosphere and how does it help us? ___________________
______________________________________________________________
4.  What elements and what percent make up the earth's atmosphere?
_____________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________

5. Matching:

   ____Mesosphere                                     a. upper limit of our atmosphere
   ____Exosphere                                       b. airplanes fly and ozone is here
   ____Troposphere                                   c. rock fragments from space burn up
   ____Thermosphere                                d. our weather occurs here
   ____Stratosphere                                   e. very thin, space shuttle orbits here

6. What are five factors that determine our weather?__________________
______________________________________________________________

7.  What is the "greenhouse effect"?_______________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
(For an easier explanation click on
Beginner.)

Go to
NASA’s Atmospheric Pressure site to answer:

8.  What is air pressure? _________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________
9.  When air is compressed it is said to be ___________________________
10.  Weather forecasters use _______________________ to measure air
pressure.

11. Why doesn’t all that air pressure squash us? ___________________
_____________________________________________________________

 

12. What kind of weather can we expect with high pressure? _____________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________

 

13. What kind of weather can we expect with low pressure? ______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________



 

Visit USA Today’s Weather Basics to fill out this blank:
14.  Name the five types of air masses that affect the U.S. weather.
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________

15.  Go to the University of Illinois’s web site and look at weather symbols and wind speed.

Name and describe 3 weather symbols. (Draw the symbols also.)

________________________________________________________________

________________________________________________________________

 

Name and describe 3 wind speeds. (Include the symbols for the speeds.)

________________________________________________________________

16. Go to Dan’s Wild Weather Page to fill out the table on how to remember the  types of clouds.  The PCS Weather Center has more information.


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

17.   Enter your score after reading Tornadoes- Going Around in Circles and  taking the Quiz at the end. _____________

18.  Answer any three questions about Hurricanes on the National Weather Service hurricane page?  List questions and answers?
___________________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________________


20.  Read this page on lightning by the National Weather Service.  Explain three facts about lightning and three lightning safety rules. ________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________

 

 

____ Check the PSC Weather Center for the latest satellite view of the U.S.

____Check out the National Weather Service site to find out your weather
         forecast.

 _____Go to
Global Interactive Weather Satellite to view weather around the
         world
.

 

 

Write a paragraph of five sentences or more about one of the three above web sites.
Include a hand drawn diagram or picture about one weather fact on the back of this sheet of paper.