In this lesson, students will classify the air masses over Oklahoma by examining the temperature and moisture content of the air across the state. In this activity, students will study the weather conditions before, during, and after cold front passage. Two cold front examples are provided so that comparisons can be made. The dryline is a significant atmospheric feature in the U.S. Southern Plains, especially during the spring storm season. In this activity, students will learn how to recognize the dryline from a set of maps.
Most students are familiar with the cool gust of air from a thunderstorm before and during rainfall.
In this activity, the students will examine how the thunderstorm outflow can be measured by the Oklahoma Mesonet. Sometimes students do not think about how data values are measured and reported. This habit can lead to misinterpretation of the data, at best, influencing a student's grade in class and, at worst, influencing public policy and government spending. This activity reminds students that data are simply measurements, for better or worse, and that a knowledge of how the data were measured and processed is necessary for proper interpretation of the information. All Rights Reserved.