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Activities for Reading Weather Maps

Weather maps tell us about the types of weather an area will experience, the expected temperature, and other factors such as precipitation, ultimately allowing us to make decisions based on the weather forecast. It's therefore useful for students to be able to read and understand a weather map. A range of activities, designed either for classroom use or for students to carry out in their own time, allow students to come to grips with weather maps.

Weather Maze
- This online game is free to play, and operates out of a user's web browser, making it highly suitable for supervised use in a classroom or for a student to play at home, possibly with an adult at hand. The game is designed for young children around the ages of 6 or 7, and is designed to help kids to recognize map symbols. Players must work their way across the board from left to right by clicking on the correct weather symbol as that type of weather is called out over the speakers. Get too many symbols wrong, and it's game over.
Follow A City
- This activity is suited toward kids of middle school age, and students should work individually for this activity. Each should be assigned a city in their own country, which they can research via newspapers, television and the Internet. The aim is that each student keeps a diary about the weather in their assigned city over an allotted period of time. The student can use any weather maps they find to record the city's daily weather, as well as the average temperature and precipitation level. After the time period has passed, the student can prepare a presentation or a piece of work discussing the city's weather, using the dataset collected.
Weather Map Quiz
- A weather map showing the whole of the United States (or the students' country of origin) is needed for this activity, which can be adapted for both junior high and older students. Kids are allowed to study the map for some time, taking note of the information found therein. The activity organizer then asks questions based on the map. For example, the organizer might ask the students to list the places with the highest amount of rainfall, or the lowest temperature. Younger children can simply be asked to make a list of all of the places with a certain type of weather.
Satellite Maps
- Students will need access to a satellite map of the U.S. for this activity, which is aimed at kids of around high school age; a suitable map can be found on the U.S.A. Today website. Students should also be provided with a blank outline of the U.S. on a poster board, which they'll use to construct a weather map of the country using the information provided by the satellite map to work out what weather types will affect which parts of the country.

Nature