Teach 3- What makes a breeze?

Kristie McLaughlin and Brooke Davis

NGSS Standard HS-ESS2-4:
Use a model to describe how variations in the flow of energy into and out of Earths systems result in changes in
climate.
Goal:
Students will gain a preliminary understanding of high and low pressure zones, and how they relate to weather
patterns on Earth in order to tie the concept into atmospheric patterns of air circulation.
Objective:
Students will be able to demonstrate the effects of temperature on air pressure through manipulation of materials
to create a working model of sea/land breezes.
1. Do Now

1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TPsnv0wna0Y
2. What do you think is happening in this video?
2. Challenge: Make the smoke go to the left instead of rising straight up.
1. Intro:
1. Safety considerations: always have water at hand to extinguish matches, safety goggles,
hair back, etc.
2. Probing Questions, i.e.
1. What does hot air do?
2. After hot air rises, what takes the place of the hot air?
3. If cold air is sinking down, is that going to be higher or lower pressure than where hot
air is rising up? What does that mean for the pressure where the warmer air has risen?
3. Gather/share
1. After about 10 minutes of messing about, students will go around the room and share the
idea that theyre working with:
2. What models did students come up with? How are they the same/different?
4. As students work, teachers can circulate and help create structure needed to guide the learning
based off observations made:
1. Vocabulary words that can help guide: convection, hot air, cold air, circulate, more/less
dense
2. Vocabulary/conceptions to avoid: Steam repels the smoke, ice attracts the smoke;
heat rises
3. Model 1: When the challenge is completed by at least one group, in groups students will draw a model
of what is happening to make the smoke move to the left.
4. Model 2: Once consensus is reached on a model, the idea of sea/land breezes will be brought up to the
class

1. Once again, students work in their groups to generate a diagram for air currents between land
and sea during the day and during the night.
5. Exit ticket: How might what you learned/observed today influence weather at the global scale?