You will need access to hot water for this activity.

Decide How to Distribute Hot Water

Each student will need about 1/4 cup of hot water. Hot water from the tap is hot enough -- in other words, water you can touch without it feeling uncomfortably hot. If you don’t have a sink in your classroom, fill a few bottles with hot water and bring them to the classroom. Keep the water hot by putting the bottles in a cooler or wrapping them in a towel.

We recommend having one container of hot water for each group of 4 students. For each group, you may want to appoint responsible students to help you pour water.

We suggest students work in pairs. Homeschool students can work alone.

Figure Out Which Direction Weather is Coming From

The wind blows the clouds around. To see what clouds (and possible storms) are coming your way, you need to look into the wind.

On this world map, arrows show which way the prevailing winds blow in different parts of the world. In the continental United States, winds blow from west to east — so we look to the West to see the weather that’s coming our way. Which way does the wind blow where you live?

Label the Cardinal Directions

Once you know which direction you want to look, use a compass, a compass app on a smartphone, or Google maps to figure out the cardinal directions. Label your classroom walls North, East, South, and West. Find a landmark that will help your students remember which way to look. (Here in San Francisco, we look toward the ocean, which is to our west.)

We suggest students work in pairs. Homeschool students can work on their own.

Teacher Background

In this lesson, we discuss both the Celsius scale and Fahrenheit scale for measuring temperature. We mainly focus on Fahrenheit because students in the United States are more familiar with this temperature scale. We have Celsius worksheets available for the activity if you would like to use that temperature scale instead.

We suggest students work in pairs. Homeschool students can work alone, but will need to complete all three portions of the map on their own.

Divide Your Class and Assign Maps

Once your students are paired up, divide your class into three groups. Decide which group will be in charge of which map (Americas map, Europe & Africa map, and Asia & Australia map). At the end of the activity, groups will combine their maps to make a full world climate map.

We suggest students work in pairs. Homeschool students can work on their own.

Prep Supplies for Distribution

Students first need one paper clip and two dot stickers to build their paper house model. For the second part of the activity, each pair will need a blank sheet of paper, six toothpicks, four paper clips, and two dot stickers to design a solution that prevents their house from blowing over in the wind. You may want to separate the supplies for these two parts of the activity for ease of classroom distribution.