Class 1 gets a hand on the weather
By Andrew Seguin
 Cauliflower, mare’s tails, blankets – they could be the ingredients for an eclectic picnic, or they could be ways to describe things you might see if you laid on your back during a picnic and looked at the sky. Class 1 science students learned that they were the latter last Thursday, as they continued their study of weather with teachers Christy Cappeto and Margaret Siciliano. Cumulus clouds look like cauliflower; cirrus clouds look like mare’s tails; and stratus clouds look like blankets.
“We want them to leave with an understanding that there are different clouds in the sky, and that different clouds cause different weather,” Ms. Cappeto said. To that end, the teachers adopt a four-pronged approach.
The girls first work with a weather chart, attaching cloud-laden images that correspond to different weather conditions. They then read a story, which not only describes the different types of clouds but also piques their curiosity with imaginative anecdotes, such as one about people who once lived in Labrador and believed that fog was caused by a great white bear that drank too much water and burst. Next is a picture-matching game.
Finally, they do something that takes them through seventh heaven to cloud nine. Ms. Cappeto cryptically introduced this part of the lesson by saying, “We have a project with glue.” She need not have said more. The class erupted in a cry of “I love glue!”
The girls’ task was to create a scene of the sky with cotton-ball versions of cumulus, cirrus and stratus clouds on it. Each girl had a piece of blue construction paper, three cotton balls and some markers, but not, to her dismay, her own personal grail of glue.
Precise instruction is essential for students at this level. Ms. Siciliano demonstrated how high to draw buildings and trees on the ground, so as not to encroach on the clouds’ territory, before showing the girls how to fold their paper into three sections, one for each type of cloud.
After employing various colors in their low-lying architecture and vegetation, the girls wrote “cirrus,” “cumulus” and “stratus” at the top of their paper, then set to work pulling, stretching and tearing the cotton balls to form the clouds.
Science is not a subject that dabbles with the inexact. Ms. Cappeto and Ms. Siciliano made sure that the girls placed the clouds on the paper as they would appear in the sky, with the cirrus clouds highest, followed by the cumulus and then the stratus. They also reminded the students that the cumulus clouds should have flat bottoms and had them use black markers to darken the stratus clouds, which bring rain or snow.
“I want to see a cumulus cloud in real life,” one of the girls said. Fortunately, real life was right outside the window, where many of the girls turned their gazes and found that they now knew what was in the sky.
|
