Education for kids.... on their level, in their language!
Children are always fascinated by the weather. It's an important part of their childhood as many weather events have long term impacts on their memory and many, when older, recall the good and bad events that have had an impression on them. I'll give some education about all types of weather topics, in simple language that is easily understood and include some cool images, animations and experiments they can try at home safely!
WATCH A CLOUD FORM!
CLICK HERE http://www.nssl.noaa.gov/edu/bm/bm02.pdf TO PRINT OUT A NEAT CARTOON STORY ABOUT WEATHER THAT YOU CAN COLOUR IN!
WEATHER EDUCATION FOR KIDS!
* What makes a rainbow? 
Rainbows are made by millions of water drops falling through the sky when it rains and the sun's rays shine through them. You may have seen all the colours? The colours of the rainbow are Red, orange, yellow, blue, green, indigo and violet. When light shines through things that reflect light, that's when you can see rainbow colours. Actual light is white! It's only when it bounces of something at the right angle that we then see the colours.
Ice crystals high up in the sky can also show colours of a rainbow, but the sun's rays have to be in the right spot so you can see the colours otherwise they are invisible to us.
Here's a photo of ice crystals on top of a cloud and the sunlight is shining through them from behind!
Ice crystals high up in the sky can also show colours of a rainbow, but the sun's rays have to be in the right spot so you can see the colours otherwise they are invisible to us.
Here's a photo of ice crystals on top of a cloud and the sunlight is shining through them from behind!
Rainbows can be seen as one, two or even three arches across the sky, what's so cool is that if you were in an airplane looking out the window and saw a rainbow, you would see it as a full circle as if it was painted on the ground!
* Here's a neat experiment to try at home to make your own rainbows: Get mum or dad to turn the hose on and make a very fine mist spray and hold it up into the air. Now if the sun is in the right spot behind the spray you can see a rainbow in the mist, if not move around the mist until you see it. It will always be there, you just have to find it! The wider the mist the bigger the rainbow!
How clouds are made
Have you seen steam rise from the kettle or from a pot on top of the stove or steam rising when you are a hot bath? What you see is what is called condensation - con-den-sation. This is tiny water droplets rising in the air because they are warmer in temperature than the surrounding air they are floating in - so they have to go up!
When the water drops reach a spot way up in the sky they all bunch together and form a cloud. If the cloud keeps going upward then it may become large enough to make rain or even a storm! The clouds that you see that go straight up fast and grow quickly are droplets still warmer than the air around them, so they don't get cold too quickly to stop growing. Hot air rises upward and cold air sinks back down to the ground
We need the sun 
to heat the ground up so that a thing called e-vap-oration happens. This is when the air is filled with water droplets from either oceans, lakes, parks, trees or rivers and all this rises into the air and hopefully makes a cloud .
Other things can create clouds too like mountains! Air is pushed toward one side of the mountain first, but because the air is at a different temperature high on the mountain, it's cooler, so the warmer air heading into the mountain has to rise up the side of it and has no choice but to cool and make more droplets, then rain!
Here you can see how the sun heats up the land and the sea causing evaporation - a bit like steam in the bath! See how the arrows are flowing up into the sky and then the cloud forms?
Clouds can be seen in lots of ways and there are many names for cloud types. Even in the morning you may see everything all misty or foggy? This is actually cloud too! It's cloud that is sitting very low at the same level as the ground, the opposite when you may see clouds around mountains! Rain forests create their own environment too, because there is so much heat from the sun warming all the vegetation up, the soil actually warms also. This creates a wonderful moist area where the rain forest has its own weather! Even if it did not rain, there would be enough moist air surrounding the forest that this would be enough to feed all the plants with all the water they needed. So the sun is very important in creating weather. Without the sun there would be no weather!
What about wind?
Wind is something that we feel all the time but we can never actually see it unless there is something flying in the air like a leaf, a feather or a piece of paper and other things. Our planet is surrounded by long 'pillows' of air that stretch right around the earth and in what's called the northern hemisphere - that's everyone that lives above the equator! - their winds move in the opposite direction to what we have in the southern hemisphere.
courtesy of NOAA (this is how cyclones and hurricanes are made)
The long pillows of air move in an upward and downward movement in different directions, either clockwise and what's called anti-clockwise. A good experiment to see which way the winds move in your area or city is to simply turn the tap on in the kitchen sink and watch the water running down the drain - now, which way is the water moving? Clockwise the way a clock's hands move or the other way?
There's a bit more to it to explain but this image is the easiest way to show it!
The equator line can be seen in the middle of the ball, which we can use as our planet. You have the north pole right at the top and the south pole at the bottom. The direction the arrow shows at the top is the rotation of the earth or which way the earth spins. In the top half of the ball you can see the directions of what weather people call high and low cells. Can you see how they are moving in opposite directions in the lower half of the ball? These cells are everywhere, some are large and some are small. it's these cells that bring the seasons. High cells bring warm, dry seasons and low cells bring the cooler, cold rainy or even snow seasons! The wind is much stronger with low cells because they most often come from colder, windier places.
Wind can be seen on weather pictures of things like hurricanes, cyclones, tornadoes (those weird funnel things that hang from the bottom of clouds and are nasty things), also seeing rain from under a cloud from far away that might be leaning to one side. Clouds that bend in the sky are doing that because of strong winds pushing them over. Even just flying a kite or watching trees move is sort of seeing wind. If you have long hair and it gets all fluffed up by the wind, that's the same thing!
Wind is everywhere and from the ground right up just before space starts, way, way up high! Wind can travel at slow speeds and at different directions or other winds above it can travel very fast from another direction. You may have seen clouds that move in one direction, but others go in another direction!
What is thunder?
Thunder is something you should not be afraid of. It is just a loud noise that is made after lightning happens. When you see a lightning flash or bolt you will hear thunder afterwards and it is when air is rushing inside what is called a 'channel'. When lightning is made it leaves behind an empty space of air that needs to be filled back up with air and it happens so fast that it's quicker than lightning! The loud bang or boom you hear is just that, so you don't need to be scared even though it can be really loud!
You can tell how far a storm is from you by counting. This is what you do: When you see a lightning flash or bolt, wait and listen for the thunder. Count 1-1000, 2-1000, 3-1000 and keep counting until you hear thunder again. The longer you can count, the further away it is. The shorter you have to count the closer it is. Remember that wind and distance can make the thunder sound a long way away, but it may be closer to you and if there's lots of lightning in different areas near you it will be hard to tell which storm is coming closer. Lightning can also travel longer distances, so where the storm is the lightning can 'jump' out from any storm. Remember to stay inside if you hear thunder that is loud.
You can tell how far a storm is from you by counting. This is what you do: When you see a lightning flash or bolt, wait and listen for the thunder. Count 1-1000, 2-1000, 3-1000 and keep counting until you hear thunder again. The longer you can count, the further away it is. The shorter you have to count the closer it is. Remember that wind and distance can make the thunder sound a long way away, but it may be closer to you and if there's lots of lightning in different areas near you it will be hard to tell which storm is coming closer. Lightning can also travel longer distances, so where the storm is the lightning can 'jump' out from any storm. Remember to stay inside if you hear thunder that is loud.
Make your own static electricity and a tornado!
Make your hair stand on end on top of your head and arms - you can even do this to mum or dad! It's really funny and fun to do. Here's the experiment....blow up a balloon and tie the end so it won't go flat! Now rub the side of the balloon with your hand quickly and then touch the balloon to someone with long hair and watch their hair stand up straight! This is called static electricity. You can also create a spark if you rub your hands on the balloon and touch someone's arm - they might feel something and you can hear it too, it sounds like a little whip cracking.
Here's how to make your own tornado in a glass of water! Fill up a large glass jug or glass of water, soda water and add some salt so you can see it swirling afterwards.. All you do is get a chop stick or something thin and you stir the water up very fast in the middle and then quickly pull the stick out - what you see is a tornado!
