How Does Your Garden Grow?
Discovering How Weather Patterns Affect
Natural Cycles
By Jennifer Cutraro and Holly Epstein Ojalvo
February 29, 2012 3:22 pm
Overview | In this lesson, students read about the unusually warm
winter most of the country has experienced and how it affects natural cycles
like plant bloom times and pollination. They explore the factors that
contribute to global climate patterns, analyze winter weather data from the
past two years and generate annotated maps of climate attributes like the jet
stream and ocean currents.
Materials | Computers with Internet access, projector, blank maps of the
United States (PDF).
Warm-Up | When students arrive, show them the National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration’s map U.S. Climate at a Glance. Ask: What do you
notice? What information does this map provide? Does this map fit with your
own experience of the weather this winter?
Next, show students what this climate map looked like over the past five
years. (To do this, scroll to the bottom of the page, pull down a previous year
and hit “submit.”) Ask: how do the climate maps from the past five years
compare with the current one? For example, how do the years compare in
terms of average January temperatures? What conclusions would you draw
about this winter’s weather, compared to past winters?
Then compare that set of map images with photographs depicting the
winter of 2012 in much of Europe. Ask: What differences do you notice? What
might account for this?
You might pull down a world map, and show students your latitude
relative to the latitudes for some of the European cities shown in the photo
gallery. Ask: Does it surprise you to see such different weather in places that
are at the same latitude? What might account for the differences? And why
might other places, like Alaska, have received record snowfall?
Finally, explain that you will read about the unusually warm winter much
of the continental United States has experienced in 2012, and how this
weather affects natural cycles.
Related | In the article Much to Savor, And Worry About, Amid Mild
Winter’s Early Blooms,” Lisa W. Foderaro reports on the 2011-12 winter’s
unusual warmth and how it’s affecting flowering plants across the country:
At the New York Botanical Garden in the Bronx, an experimental
plot was in full flower on a recent February afternoon, as the
thermometer edged toward 60.
The Japanese camellias, which typically bloom in early spring,
have displayed their rose-hued flowers continuously since December.
Honeybees, a rarity before late March, were nursing the tiny pink
clusters on a Dawn viburnum, while the Adonis amurensis, a groundhugging spring ephemeral, was a profusion of yellow.
“This is the earliest I’ve seen all of these things in flower,” said
Todd Forrest, the garden’s vice president for horticulture and living
collections. “The ground isn’t even frozen. That’s shocking.”
Read the entire article with your class, using the questions below.
Questions | For discussion and reading comprehension:
1. What are some of the reasons why, according to the author, “the early
run of warm weather is not without its downside”?
2. Is this mild weather a sign of climate change?
3. Why are some gardeners and horticulturalists expressing concern
about how the early blooming of som plant species may affect
pollination.
4. How might a milld winter, followed by a late spring frost, affect apple
production?
Activity | Explain to students that they will work in pairs or small groups
to explore the factors that contribute to weather patterns, and then investigate
why some meteorologists have started to call the 2011-12 season the “year
without a winter.”
Explain that this will take the form of a weather information scavenger
hunt, using NYTimes.com and other resources including reliable Web sites as
well as textbooks and reference books.
Hand out four blank United States maps (PDF) for each pair of students.
Guide them in adding lines of latitude to their maps, or provide maps that
include latitude lines.
To begin, ask: What is weather? Have them jot ideas in their notebooks,
and then share out. Next, have them begin the information scavenger hunt.
Give them these weather items to search for:
Jet Stream: What is a jet stream? What is the name of the jet stream
that affects most of the United States? What happens to the weather when the
jet stream dips to the south or veers farther north than usual?
Ocean Currents: What role do the oceans play in regulating climate
patterns? What are phenomena like El Niño, La Niña and the North Atlantic
Oscillation, and how do they affect climate patterns across the United States.?
Why is heat an important factor to consider when exploring the relationship
between ocean currents and climate? How can ocean currents affect even
landlocked states like Wyoming or Illinois? What is the Gulf Stream, and
where is it located? How does the Gulf Stream account for the different
climates experienced in much of western Europe as opposed to Siberia, both of
which are at the same latitude?
Land Masses: How do land masses affect heating and cooling of the
atmosphere? How does this affect weather patterns?
As students work on the scavenger hunt, have them also annotate their
maps by drawing on the map the approximate location of the weather and
climate attributes listed above.
Based on what they have learned, ask them to predict how these weather
attributes may change location according to the season by sketching one map
for each season of the year – summer, fall, winter and spring.
Next, have students visit the National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration’s State of the Climate report for January 2012. This resource
provides a snapshot of the nation’s climate every month, including regional
and state-level temperature and precipitation averages. Have students toggle
between national, regional and state data January of 2012 and January 2011
and to record differences they notice in the data. Ask them to record their
observations in their notebooks.
With these data in mind, have students to explain how atmospheric
changes in the early winter of 2011 accounted for the extreme cold gripping
much of the nation. What accounts for the unusually warm winter most of the
United States is experiencing in 2012?
Finally, have groups pair up and offer time to groups to share notes and
compare maps as well as their observations of the 2011 and 2012 weather data.
Can they explain to one another how factors like the jet stream and Pacific
currents contribute to the unusually mild winter of 2012? Or how changes to
the jet stream in 2011 accounted for the extreme cold experienced by much of
the nation?
Going Further | Students take photographs or make sketches in their
journals to document bud burst, or the timing of flowering, for trees coming
into bloom or shoots pushing through the soil in their neighborhoods.
For help in identifying flowering plants, you might contact your state
Master Gardener office. They should document the date, time and location of
each photo or sketch. Working with the Master Gardener office, a state
cooperative extension office students also should investigate whether plants
this year are blooming earlier than usual; if possible, ask students to find
average bloom dates for several common species. Then, compare bloom times
with the winter climate data they collected above. Do any patterns emerge?
Students could also enter their data with Project Budburst, a citizen
science initiative to track the timing of flowering for various plants across the
country (the “Plant Resources” tab on the page includes resources such as a
flower identification chart and terms to use for stages of plant flowering).
Alternatively or additionally, students can capture how a specific site near
their school or homes look year-round – taking a photograph or making a
sketch, say, every week at the same time, and then making an annotated
exhibit or slide show explaining what the images document, including salient
weather data like temperature and rainfall levels, compared with normal
conditions.
Standards | This lesson is correlated to McREL’s national standards (it
can also be aligned to the new Common Core State Standards):
Language Arts
1. Demonstrates competence in the general skills and strategies of the writing
process.
4. Gathers and uses information for research purposes.
Life Skills: Life Work
2. Uses various information sources, including those of a technical nature, to
accomplish specific tasks.
Life Skills: Working with Others
1. Contributes to the overall effort of a group.
4. Displays effective interpersonal communication skills.
Science
8. Understands the structure and properties of matter.
9. Understands the sources and properties of energy.
10. Understands forces and motion.
11. Understands the nature of scientific knowledge.
12. Understands the nature of scientific inquiry.
13. Understands the scientific enterprise.
Technology
6. Understands the nature and uses of different forms of technology.
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