BUILD YOUR OWN WEATHER STATION
HOW TO FIND NORTH, SOUTH, EAST, AND WEST
Materials: a flat area with no shade, a straight stick about 18 inches long, stones for marking
location
Locate a flat sunny space. Bury the base of the stick so that it will stand up on its own. First
thing in the morning place a small stone at the end of the shadow cast by the stick. After school,
or late afternoon, place another marking stone at the end of the afternoon shadow. Position your
right foot on the morning stone and your left foot on the afternoon stone. Your body now faces
south. Use stones to mark north, south, east, and west.
WIND VANE (p 47 in your book)
Materials: card stock (or any stiff paper), drinking straw, straight pin, pencil, scissors, tape
1. Use the template above to cut out the shapes on stiff paper.
2. Make a slit 1 cm deep in each end of a drinking straw.
3. Slide the pointer and tail fin into place on the straw, securing them with small pieces of
tape.
4. Hold the straw on your finger to find the point at which it balances.
5. Carefully push a pin through the balance point and into the eraser of a pencil. Make sure
the wind vane can spin freely.
ANEMOMETER (p 53 in your book)
Materials: pen, toothpick, tape, 2 wooden coffee stirrers, ruler, cardboard sheet (approximately
15 cm x 20 cm)
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0
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1. Use the template to draw a curved scale on the piece of cardboard.
2. Carefully use the pen to make a small hole where the toothpick will go. Be careful to
position the hole so that the end of the stirrer will fall at the zero mark.
3. Insert the toothpick through the hole.
4. Tape the wooden coffee stirrers to the toothpick, one on each side of the cardboard.
5. Use your wind vane to determine what direction the wind is coming from. Hold your
anemometer so that the card is straight, vertical, and parallel to the wind direction.
6. Observe the wooden stirrer on your anemometer for one minute. Record the highest
wind speed that occurs during that time.
RAIN GAUGE (p. 65 in your book)
Materials: a glass beaker (or any straight-sided glass that can be marked with a measuring
scale), ruler
Any measuring glass left outside can serve as a rain gauge. Locate a good position for you
gauge. There should be nothing overhead (trees, edge of a roof, etc.). Leave your rain gauge
out, wait for rain, record your measurement, then empty the glass.
CLOUD COVER
Typically, the percentage of the sky that is covered with clouds is measured by oktas. One okta
represents 1/8 of the sky. To measure the percentage of the sky covered a rectangular mirror is
divided into 8 parts. Hold it up facing the sky and estimate the number of oktas the clouds fill in.
Cloud coverage ranges from 0 oktas (completely clear) to 8 oktas (completely overcast).
To make your observations easier, you will be estimating cloud cover with the following scale:
Name:
Fill out the following chart for 7 consecutive days. Record your measurements at approximately
the same time each day.
Date
Time
Wind Direction
Wind Speed
Inches of Rain
Cloud Cover
Temperature
Parent Initials
Using Microsoft Excel, prepare a bar graph for wind speed and a line graph for temperature. For
each graph, plot the date on the x-axis. Print the graphs out and hand in with the weather chart.
1. Refer to your temperature chart and describe how the temperature varied over the 7 days.
2. Was the wind direction constant? Explain.
3. Look at your data. Do you see any connections? For example, did a higher wind speed
relate to more cloud cover?
Hand in your anemometer and wind vane with the graphs and weather chart.