4/19/2020 Weather Diary Overview | Introduction to the Weather Diary Assignment | SKY101x Courseware | edX

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Weather Diary Overview

Science is all about making observations, and reporting them. In this course, you will
complete a weather diary assignment each week. At the end of the course, you will
expand your skills by making a prediction about your local weather, and then checking
your predictions with the weather that occurs.

WEATHER DIARY OBSERVATIONS

For the weather diary observations througout the course, you will observe
and report the following:

temperature

relative humidity

surface wind direction and speed

direction of winds aloft

cloud formations you see

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Each week, you will be asked to observe with additional detail based on what you learn in
the course. For example, we will start out asking about clouds you observe, but later you
will be able to identify speci c cloud types based on their shape and characteristics.

It can be really tempting to just look up the weather on your cell phone or online but do
your best to try and avoid this, at the very least until you’ve made your prediction. Don’t
become too obsessed with precision. Part of the rst week should be an opportunity to
tune up your observing powers. Remember that any observation comes with an element
of uncertainty and we just have to live with this.

We suggest that you can check your early observations with instruments, newspaper
reports, or online websites. But, rst, by all means, make your own observations. Make a
note of them, and only when you’ve recorded your observations, then you should look up
the values from other sources or your own instruments (such as a barometer). Over time,
you can ne tune your judgements. For example, how much does humidity a ect your
perception of temperature? Can you disentangle the two e ects? Hot humid days can feel
much hotter than hot dry days. After a week of checking your observations against
external reports, try to do everything on your own, without reference to other sources.

By gaining experience, over time you will start to develop some intuition. Back in the day,
people would seem to be sure that a storm was coming. It may have seemed like a feeling
that they had – but in reality, this was backed by years of experience. So, be bold, and
make your observations. If you see a change in the weather coming, make a prediction
and stick to it. You may be wrong – and that is in the nature of weather predictions, but
even when you’re wrong, you can maybe nd what you guessed wrong, and correct it for
the next time. Because weather has so many non-linear processes, it’s not an easy game,
even with sophisticated computer models.

This assignment will be graded on completeness, not correctness. In parts 1-4 you will
complete two weather observations per week. In part 4 you will test your skills by making
a weather prediction from your observations and then con rm if your prediction was
correct. ID-Veri ed learners will have an opportunity to submit their observations and
predictions for credit. Our goal is for you to practice observing the weather, hone your
observation skills, and make progressively better predictions.

We strongly encourage you to keep a paper weather notebook. You will be submitting
both of your observations for each week at the same time, so you will need to record both
before you are able to enter in the online diary. Keep in mind this is also the case for the

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4/19/2020 Weather Diary Overview | Introduction to the Weather Diary Assignment | SKY101x Courseware | edX

nal diary, where you will be making predictions between your rst and second
observations.

Please complete your observations safely. If dangerous conditions arise, complete your
observations from a safe location if possible, if not, wait to complete them at another time
when it is safe to be outside. Follow your local weather emergency alerts for guidance.

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