# Presentation: 034240

## Integrating the GLOBE Cloud Protocol

- in an Elementary Earth Science Unit:
- Clouds and the Water Cycle

## This work was funded by the

- U.S. National Science Foundation
- under grant # 0222673.

## Our goals:

- Help GLOBE students achieve deeper understanding of what clouds are, how they form, and their significance in the Earth system.
- Embed the GLOBE cloud protocols in a deeper context of scientific meaning.
- Thereby enhance the implementation of the GLOBE cloud protocols.

## The GLOBE Cloud Protocols

- Cloud Cover & Contrail Cover
- Cloud Type & Contrail Type
- Student activities:
- Observe
- Classify
- Record
- Submit data

## However, performing the GLOBE protocols

- does not help students understand
-  what clouds are
-  how they form
-  their significance in the Earth system
- Providing this understanding is left to the teacher.
- Our goal was to develop learning activities that
- would help elementary students build this understanding.

## What we did:

- Constructed a prototype unit of 8 lessons.
- Piloted the unit in a 3rd grade classroom.
- We are now digesting the experience and at the end of our presentation we want you to help evaluate what students learned from the unit.

## Our process

- We identified what students at this grade level need to understand about
- - what clouds are
- - how clouds form
- - the role of clouds in the water cycle

- 2. We identified what we thought students _already knew, _such as
- 	- water evaporates
- 	- clouds are water
- 	- clouds produce rain or snow

- 3. We identified what we thought would be _hardest_ for students to understand, such as:
- 	- when water evaporates it forms invisible water vapor
- 	- clouds condense on tiny particles, such as smoke
- 	- clouds are tiny droplets of water suspended in the atmosphere

## Unit Learning Goals

- Water is found everywhere on Earth.
- Water is important for life.
- Water occurs in three phases.
- Water vapor is invisible.
- Water cycles through the Earth system through the processes of evaporation, condensation, and precipitation.

## Unit Goals (continued)

- Clouds form under specific conditions (drop in temperature, water vapor, small particles) through condensation of water vapor into small drops of water (aerosol) in the atmosphere.

## We created an 8-lesson unit of

- Observations
- Demonstrations
- Discussions

## Pedagogical Strategies

- Connect the children’s everyday experiences to the natural processes we want them to understand.
- Use classroom demonstrations to illustrate processes that were hard to observe otherwise.

## A Representation of theWater Cycle

## We Used Everyday Experiences

- To discuss evaporation, condensation, precipitation, and phase change of water.

## We Used Demonstrations

- To show processes that were hard to observe in their natural state.

## We developed a “Recipe for a Cloud”

- Start with water vapor
- Add condensation nuclei
- Lower the temperature
- Voila -- a cloud!

## We connected the demonstrations to processes in nature

- We asked: “Does nature use the same ‘recipe’ for a cloud as we used in our classroom?”

## We asked . . . 

- Does nature have water vapor?

- Does nature have smoke?

- Does nature have a drop in temperature?

## When these come together . . .

- Nature makes a cloud!

## Unit Assessment

- As an end-of-unit performance assessment we asked the children to create a poster showing what they had learned. We asked them to use words and drawings to show the following:

## Instructions to the children: Include in your poster . . .

- Why water is important.
- Where water is found on Earth.
- How water moves around the Earth.
- The three phases of water: solid, liquid, gas.
- The water cycle: evaporation, condensation, precipitation.

## Help Us Evaluate the Posters

- What do you think the children learned?
- Does the poster show understanding of the learning goals for the unit?
- Does the poster make the children’s thinking visible?

## How to contact us:

- _[Harold_mcwilliams@terc.edu](mailto:Harold_mcwilliams@terc.edu)_
- _[Gilly_puttick@terc.edu](mailto:Gilly_puttick@terc.edu)_