Week 4 Pre-Trip Post

Arctic-Wednesdays Pre-Trip report

Colleen Koroski 3rd grade teacher

February 27, 2017

After several attempts to get to the summit of Mt. Washington I believe it’s going to actually happen. Today is Monday and I just got the official word that Kimmer and I will be heading up tomorrow instead of Wednesday and I can’t wait. Initially we were scheduled to travel by snowcat to the Weather Observatory on February 8th. Our trip has been rescheduled two or three times due to the weather. After listening to the forecast for tomorrow and Wednesday I can see why we’re heading up tomorrow. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that we actually make it to the top. The third grade students in my class are excited for this trip but will be out of the building during the time frame that I’ll be on top. We have a tentative plan to video conference with one of the weather observers on Wednesday or Thursday. To prepare for this trip, third graders have been learning about weather and how it is measured. This fall, our school purchased a personal weather station which is now on our roof and connected to the wunderground network. Third graders have been studying different types of weather and how we measure it.  We read books about and watched a few videos about temperature and wind speed. I created a challenge for my students where they were asked to help the weather observers explain windchill to the children who visit the top of Mt. Washington during the summer. Students had follow a webquest to gather as much information about windchill and how it is measured. The students then had to type an explanation so another child could understand this concept. We put all of their responses into a book which I’ll bring to the summit tomorrow. I’m not sure who’s more excited, me or my students.

Examples from the Wind Chill responses: