What's the Climate Like?

Climate very much affects the character of a place. The amount of sun or rain, heat or cold, the direction and strength of the wind, all determine such things as how people dress, how well crops grow, and the extent to which people will want to live in a particular spot. Join your children in observing weather conditions.
• Watch the weather forecast on television or read the weather map in the newspaper. Save the maps for a month or more. You can see changes over time and compare conditions over several weeks and seasons. Reading the weather map helps children observe changes in the local climate.

• Use a weather map to look up the temperatures of cities around the world and discover how hot each gets in the summer and how cold each gets in the winter. Compare these figures with your town. Ask your children if they can think of reasons why different locations have different temperatures. Many children enjoy finding the place that is the hottest or the coldest.

• Make simple weather-related devices such as barometers, pinwheels, and wind chimes (check at your local public library for how-to books of experiments). Watch cloud formations and make weather forecasts for your hometown.