Extension Activities
Extend your study of the seasons with one or more of these activities!
Arts&Crafts | Animals | Folklore Predictions | Geography | Plants | Seasons | Social Studies | Weather | Writing
Geography
Using a globe or map, mark the locations of participants. Older students can use longitudes and latitudes.
Maps online:
Eduplace - Map outlines: A library of printable country and U.S. state outline map.
Maps online: From the U.S. Geological Service (USGS).
3G on W3 - The Great Globe Gallery:: Colorful world globes and relief maps
Resources:
Geography World: resources created by a high school teacher.
Discover School A-Z Geography Guide: Comprehensive descriptions around the globe.
National Geographic
Time zones:
A world map with time zones. Color coded map with time zone divisions.
A table of world time zones.
Greenwich Mean Time Clock. The world day starts here, in Greenwich, England.
World Clock: Time Zones a table of cities around the world with local times.
Distance:
How far away are they? From indo.com. When you want to know how far from you (as the crow flies) other participants in your project are, this site is THE place. Students can easily do it themselves. A map shows the two places queried.
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Culture and Climate
Pick a participating class' location(s) to study more about them. Learn about their clothing and activities and relate them to the observations reported in our ezine. Invite them to be email pals with your class.
E-Conflict World Encyclopedia: profiles the nations of the world. Look at maps and flags or listen to national anthems.
There are over 1,500 pages of written text on the nations.
Geographia: articles and stories about places around the world.
Library of Congress Country Studies: Information on political, economic, social, and national security systems of
85 countries (and growing). Written by multidisciplinary teams of social scientists.
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Graphing Temperatures and Conditions
Record the weather conditions. Make a graph of the number of snow days, rainy days, cloudy days, shine days.
Hang a thermometer outside or use an online weather site or your local newspaper to find the daily temperature. Record your outside temperature daily or weekly (using thermometer or newspaper or WWW). Make a graph of your records. Find the average/median/median temperature for the observation period.
Use the Weather Day data to make a table of longitudes and weather conditions.
Use the Fall Firsts observerations to make a table of longitudes and dates of one of the signs.
Scientific Project steps: An outline defining the sequence of activities that are involved in any scientific investiongation. Has both primary and more advanced lists.
The Weather Underground: temperatures, maps, metric and farenheit scales.
The Weather Channel: weather reports and maps for around the world.
WeatherNet: forecasts, images, and the Net's largest collection of weather links from the University of Michigan. Forecasts & warnings, radar, maps, computer model forecasts, special weather statements, and winter weather statements
USA Today Weather: comprehensive current weather information, with satellite imagery, forcast maps, search by state, high quality graphics.
Global and zonal temperature deviations: (advanced) graphs of analyzed temperature changes globally and across latitudes over the past 100 years.
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Progression of the seasons
Use a model of our solar system or the Earth and Sun to demonstrate how and why the seasonal changes happen. Pick a location in the opposite hemisphere from yours and follow the temperature changes of their season.
Questions to consider:
- What causes the seasons?
- Does every place have the same seasons at the same time?
- What are the Fall and Spring equinoxes? When do they occur?
- What are the Winter and Spring solstices? When do they occur?
- What is the precession of the equinoxes?
- What is the ecliptic?
- What is the equatorial coordinate system?
- Why do leaves change color?
- Why do the (equinox) first day of Spring and Autun change each year?
Seasons of the year. Informative article from NASA scientist David Stern. Many more advanced articles on Earth's motion in space are also included on this site.
Seasons. Feature arctile from WorldBook Encyclopedia explaining the seasons, equinoxes and solstices. Scroll down the index list to Plants, Animals, and the Environment: The Seasons.
Seasons. Interactive visual display of the Sun's position relative to the Earth throughout the year (requires java-enabled in browser).
WorldTime. Visual display. Interactive global map that you can recenter and rotate, with optional country boundaries and lines of latitude and longitude. Shows day/night line, and times for major cities.
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Plants
How plants respond
Investigate the ways that plants survive winter conditions. Make a list of the common plants around your area that you can observe daily. Identify which ones produce seeds, which plants die, produce nuts, go dormant, or stay active all winter. Keep track of when the plant begins to change in response to the changing conditions.
Leaves
Changing leaf colors are one of the hallmarks of the season's change, as plants in the colder regions prepare to go dormant. Here are some resources online.
2001 Fall Colors Web Site from the U.S. Forestry Service, includes links to webcams of color "hot spots" in National Parks.
How are Leaves Alike and Different: activities for collecting and comparing leaves.
NASA: A Change of Season: very brief explanations of seasonal terms -- just enough to stimulate further discussion.
Photosynthesis: Don't "Leaf" Out Fall's Most Valuable Lesson!: article and related fall activities.
Science Made Simple: Why do leaves change color in the Fall?: Includes information on how plants prepare for winter, and projects for separating colors in a green leaf and in a fall leaf.
Summer leaves for fall's finery article about changing colors and activities from CNN.
SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry: Why leaves change color: Simply stated summary of foliage color changes.
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Animal Habits
Research what animals live in your area. Which can you observe every week? Which could be seen at a trip to your local zoo? How and where do they spend the winter?
Lycos Encyclopedia of Animals: Animal information is grouped by habitats, continents and classes.
Animal Diversity Web: From the University of Michigan's Zoology Dept. Summaries broken down by location, habitat, food, reproduction, behavior and importance to humans.
refdesk.com: Alphabetized index of animal web sites.
eNature Guides: Searchable profiles of over 5,000 animal species, with photos.
Active
Which animals in your area are active all winter? Where do they live? How do they find food during winter?
Hibernation
Which animals in your area hibernate? Where do they live? How do they store food for the winter?
Migration
Find out which animals in your area migrate in the spring and fall. Watch for when these animals arrive in your area again. Make a chart of when the animals arrive. Adopt an animal and research their habits.
Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center: monthly pictures and profiles of birds. Includes a map of wintering locations for North American birds
Monarchwatch: Extensive information and resources on the only butterfly species that migrates up to 3000 miles annually.
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Writing
Read and write stories and poems describing the changing seasons.
A Haiku Year: Haikus describing every season. Read some of these poems with your class and then write your own and share them online with us.
How to Haiku: the form redefined for English with examples and a page of tips.
Autumn on a Farm: This easy-to-read description of the activities that take place can be a starting point for student stores about the activities in their own lives in Fall.
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Arts and Crafts
Describing Autumn: Students photograph and then describe in words a seasonal object in nature. Another student attempts to identify the picture from the written description. A variation would be to draw the object, similar to the monster exchange projects.
Apples Curriculum Unit: a huge assortment of apple-related activities.
Autumn Art: fun projects to make with leaves.
Autumn Snacks and Crafts: treats to make with apples and pumpkins, plus leaf projects. (due to page code problem, not visible with Netscape 4)
Pump Up the Curriculum with Pumpkins: thematic set of cross-curricular activities.
Just for Fun: Fall Games: Browser-based games, including basic, javascript and Flash.
Weather Folklore
Down through the generations, folk weather predictions, have been passed down. They are generally based on experience, and over the years become rhymes and cliches. Below is a collection of websites with lists of these predictions, some historical verification, and in some cases, scientific testing.
Classroom ideas:
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