Name

Unit 4  Measuring the weather Class

Date

Start thinking
1 Answer the questions.
1 What’s the weather like today?

2 What’s your favourite kind of weather? Why?

3 What’s the weather like in different parts of your country?

Comprehension check
2 Watch the video. Choose the correct answers.
1 The Radcliffe Meteorological Station in Oxford is very …
a big. b modern. c old.
2 The city of Oxford is in the … of England.
a north-east b south-east c south-west
3 British weather is … every day.
a different b similar c the same

3 Watch the video again. Complete the sentences.

1 This morning, Ian is measuring the temperature, the wind and the  .
2 The thermometers are in a white  .
3 Ian writes his measurements in his  .
4 Today there isn’t any water in the bottle because it isn’t  .
5 Today the anemometer is moving quite slowly because it isn’t very  .
6 In Oxford the weather is usually warm and  .
7 In Belfast today, it isn’t raining, but it’s very  .
8 In Scotland today, it’s  .
9 The south of England is quite warm and  .

4 Complete the summary with the words below.

direction climate north south thermometers weather west speed
Every day, Ian Ashpole monitors the 1 in Oxford. He uses different 2 to measure the
temperature, a barometer to measure the atmospheric pressure, an anemometer to measure the wind
3
and a wind vane to see which 4 the wind is coming from. The weather is different
in different parts of the UK. The 5 of the country is quite wet, the 6 of the country is
quite cold and the 7 is quite warm. In general, the UK has quite a moderate 8  .

5 Work in pairs. Answer the questions.

1 Do you want to do Ian’s job? Why / why not?
2 How do you usually find out about the weather?
3 Do you ever change your plans because of the weather? When?

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 Vocabulary
6 Match the words 1–8 with the definitions a–h.
1 average a the plants that a farmer grows
2 crops b snow and rain together
3 device c the normal amount
4 direction d how fast something goes
5 level e a machine you use for a special job
6 sleet f how hot or cold something is
7 speed g where something is going
8 temperature h how high or low something is

7 Complete the sentences with the verbs below.

blows drops falls grows measures monitors
1 Snow often on the mountains of Scotland.
2 The sea can be dangerous when the wind  .
3 A meteorologist the weather conditions.
4 A thermometer how hot or cold something is.
5 Fruit well in the south of England.
6 A cloud often rain when it moves over mountains.

Extension
Work in groups. You are going to give a presentation about a country’s weather to your class.
1 Brainstorm twenty countries in the world.
2 Choose one country each and research the weather in the different parts of the country. When you have
finished, ask the other students in your group questions about the weather in the country they researched.
3 Choose one of the countries in your group. Make a poster, with a map of the country, and some weather
cards to use for your presentation.
4 Give the presentation to your class.

Useful expressions: Describing weather

… has a … climate.
In the north, it’s usually …
In the south, it often …
In the east, it sometimes …
In the west, it’s always …
It never … in … because …

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 Unit 4  DVD teacher’s notes

Video summary
The video is about the weather in the UK. It focuses on the instruments used to measure weather, and then
explains what the weather is like in the different regions of the UK. This video links to page 51 of the Student’s Book.

Background culture notes

The Radcliffe Meteorological Station in Oxford is part of the School of Geography and the Environment in Oxford
University. It was founded in 1772, and was named after one of the University’s former students, John Radcliffe.
The station holds the record for the longest series of continuous temperature and rainfall records for one site in
Britain. These records are continuous from January 1815.
Oxford is a city in southern England about 80 km north-west of London. Oxford has an average summer
temperature of 20 ºC and an average winter temperature of 7 ºC. The annual rainfall is about 650 mm.
Belfast is the capital city of Northern Ireland. The city has an average summer temperature of 18 ºC and an
average winter temperature of 8 ºC. The annual rainfall is about 1,000 mm.
Scotland has an average summer temperature of 18 ºC and an average winter temperature of 6 ºC. The annual
rainfall is over 3,000 mm and in some areas it snows for up to 52 days a year.

Start thinking
1 Read the questions with the class and elicit answers from individual students. Encourage students to
give a personal response and use their suggestions to start a class discussion.
Answer key
Students’ own answers.

Comprehension check
2 Answer key
1  c  2 b  3 a

3 Answer key
1 rain
2 box
3 notebook
4 raining
5 windy
6 dry
7 cloudy
8 snowing
9 sunny

4 Answer key
1 weather
2 thermometers
3 speed
4 direction
5 west
6 north
7 south
8 climate

5 Students’ own answers.

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 Vocabulary
6 Answer key
1c 2a 3e 4g 5h 6b 7d 8f

7 Answer key
1 falls
2 blows
3 monitors
4 measures
5 grows
6 drops

Extension
Stage 1: Preparation before the class
• Ask: How many countries can you think of? Write the answers on the board.
• Tell students they are going to prepare a presentation about the weather in one of the countries. Ask them to
choose a country and research it on the Internet. Tell them to bring their notes to the next class.
• Each group will need one large piece of card, four sheets of A4 paper and something adhesive like Blu-Tack.
Stage 2: Procedure in the class
• Divide students into small groups of three or four. Ask them to move their desks together, if possible.
• Ask students to take out the research about the weather in the country they chose.
• Tell them to ask each other questions about the weather, e.g. What’s the weather like in the north of the country?
• Explain that the students must now choose one of the countries in their group. Give each group the card and
the sheets of paper.
• Tell students to draw a map of the country on the card. Tell them to use the four sheets of paper to make
weather cards. Refer students to the weather symbols on Student’s Book page 50. Tell them to make the weather
cards they will need to describe the weather in the country.
• Ask each group to give their presentation. Finally, have a class vote on the best presentation.
Extra ideas
Try searching for climate information about different countries on sites like Wikipedia. You can usually find weather
information if you click on ‘climate’ in the list of contents.

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 Unit 4 DVD scripts  Measuring the weather
This is Ian Ashpole. He works at the Radcliffe Meteorological Station in Oxford, the oldest weather station in the UK. He
monitors the weather. This morning he’s measuring the temperature, the wind and the rain.
Ian takes these measurements every day. First he checks the thermometers in this white box. They measure the
maximum and minimum temperature of the day. There’s usually a barometer, too. This measures the atmospheric
pressure.
Ian always writes these measurements in his notebook.
Ian also checks the rainwater levels. It isn’t raining today, so there isn’t any water.
This large machine is for measuring wind. The device on the left is called an anemometer. It measures the wind speed.
It isn’t very windy today.
The device on the right is a wind vane. It shows the direction the wind is blowing in. Today the wind is blowing in a
north-easterly direction.
Oxford is in the south-east of the United Kingdom, so it’s warm and dry. But the weather in the UK is very varied and
different parts of Britain have different climates.
The west is quite wet. Clouds from the Atlantic Ocean move across the country and drop most of their rain on the hills
and mountains in the west.
This means that it rains a lot in places like Belfast, the capital city of Northern Ireland. In Belfast it rains on average 150
days per year. Today, it isn’t raining, but it’s very cloudy.
In the north it’s quite cold. Scotland is colder than the rest of the UK. On average snow or sleet falls in Scotland on
fifty-two days a year. Today, it’s snowing quite heavily here.
In the south, the climate is quite warm and sunny. It’s a great place to grow crops and fruit.
The UK has a moderate climate, but the weather is always changing. So, Ian’s job never gets boring!

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