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Weather Report Teacher's Notes

The students are going on a virtual trip to another country. They are going to check the weather before they leave so they know what type of clothes to pack. The students will chart the weather in the country of their choice for today and check the forecast for the next three days. They will prepare a weather report, for television or radio, to perform in class.

Media / Biennio

One or two 45-minute lessons

Pairs or small groups

The students can ...
... follow links on the Internet.
... read a map.
... understand directional vocabulary: north, south, east, west.

The students will be able to ...
... identify different types of weather and their media symbols.
... report the differences in weather around the world using the Internet.
... give a weather forecast in the country chosen.

Procedure

Part One

Discuss what type of information is given in a weather report.

Discuss what symbols are used in the newspaper and on television to represent the different types of weather.

Suggest that the students bring in the weather report from the newspaper and discuss the different symbols and pictures used to describe the weather.
Give the students Activity One Weather and Its Symbols. This will help them understand the different symbols.

Divide the class into pairs or groups. Each pair or group chooses a city in a different country around the world that they would like to visit.

Part Two

To help the students prepare the information they will need to prepare a weather report give each group Activity Two. If the class is unable to go to the Internet, you can print out the weather report from several countries the night before and give one CNN weather report to the each group with the worksheet.

The students are asked to go to the CNN.com Internet site at: http://www.cnn.com/WEATHER/ .

In the centre of the page, find World: Choose a region.

Have the students click on a region of the world to locate the name of the country for which they want weather information.

Scroll the list of cities and countries and have the students click on the city they have chosen.

When they have completed Activity Two, the students should begin preparing their weather report.

At a later time, you may want to send the students to Map Machine at http://plasma.nationalgeographic.com/mapmachine/ Here they can locate a map of the city and/or country they chose.

The students should prepare a television, radio or newspaper weather report from the information they learned in this activity. This can be done on video, tape recorder, live in class, or as a PowerPoint presentation. They should include temperature, wind, cloud cover and any other important information.

With the students, prepare a list of different types of clothing or ask them to bring in pictures of different types of clothing from magazines. After listening to the weather reports, ask the students to discuss which articles of clothing they would pack in their suitcase if they were going to that country for three days. Compare the lists from the groups.

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