100 PAGES OF EPIC DISCOVERY FOR KIDS AGED 7-11

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7
Future
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 W
6
hat’s ins de
What is weather? 38 Tornadoes 76 Helping the birds and
8 How is the weather made? 40 When weather turns bad the bees

10 Why is the weather 42 Amazing weather 78 Turn your fingers green

important to me? 44 Weather and the seasons 80 Monitoring the
12 How do we forecast effects of pollution
46 Precipitation puzzles
the weather? 82 Weather experiments and
52 When the weather is useful
14 Whatever the weather: activities to try at home
puzzles 54 Renewable energy
84 Wind and rain
20 Different kinds of weather 56 Wind power
86 Have fun in the snow
22 Sunny days 58 Solar power
88 Get the measure of things
24 Cloudy days 60 Wave and tidal power
90 Get your head in the clouds
26 Rainy days 62 Energy power puzzles
92 When lightning strikes
28 Foggy days 68 Climate and the weather
94 Even more cool activities
30 Snowy days 70 What is climate? to try

32 Windy days 72 What’s happening to the 96 Keep track of ever-

climate? changing weather
34 Thunder and lightning
74 How can I help Earth? 98 Fun facts about the
36 Hurricanes weather

12

24
4
26 34
54
42
78
INTERACTIVE EXPERIENCE
Scan the QR code with your
device’s camera or download
a free QR code reader app.
Many iPhone and Android
devices include these features
58
86
When you see the ‘Scan Hold your mobile device over
with your phone or tablet’ the image and watch it come
prompt, use your device to to life! Your device needs to
scan the QR code, which be connected to the internet
looks like this for this to function
5
WHAT IS WEATHER?
L ook outside, and describe what’s
happening. Are lots of people walking
about? Are cars whizzing by? Is it noisy or
quiet? Now, move your gaze away from
the ground, and start to concentrate on
describing what’s going on in the air.
What you are observing is called weather –
the condition of the air or atmosphere
at this very moment in time – and it’s just
as fascinating!
It may be raining, the Sun might be
shining, or objects could be flying through
the air because of strong wind. You may be
getting very excited because snow is falling,
or you could be glad that you are safe and
warm indoors, because lightning bolts are
flashing down from the sky in the form of
a thunderstorm!
All of these are different kinds of weather.
What’s more, weather is temporary and
constantly changing. A day may start with
rain, but by the time you’ve finished school,
the Sun could be peeping from behind the
clouds, and it may have suddenly become
very warm.
Your life during those different times will
be affected too. The weather influences
what you will wear – waterproofs in the rain,
perhaps, or a t-shirt and shorts when it’s nice
and sunny. It also affects what you will do
– Not many people will head to a sandy
beach during a gale! After all, who wants
sand in their eyes?
But what is causing weather to happen?
Well, as you will soon see, weather is caused
by changes to temperature, humidity, air
pressure, cloud formation, precipitation and
wind. It is also influenced by factors like
geography and altitude (how high a location
is), as well as the distance north or south of
the equator (a measurement known as
latitude). One thing weather is not, however,
is simple. Even on the most seemingly
uneventful of days, lots of amazing things
are going on.

WORD LADDER!
Weather is constantly changing, so
what is happening right now is only
temporary. Here, windy weather is
about to change into a gale. Can
you make your way from these two
events by changing just one letter
each time?

WINDS

GALES
ANSWERS: Wands, wanes, wales, gales
6
 WHAT IS WEATHER?

JOIN THE DOTS!

When this young boy left the house, the weather was partially cloudy, but dry. Now, it is raining. Hurry! Join the
dots and create an umbrella that will keep him sheltered from the rain. Why not colour in the picture too?

DID YOU
KNOW?
Weather depends on what is
happening in the Earth’s
atmosphere – you can
thank our planet for sunny
2
and snow days! 1 3
68

67 4

66
5

6
65

8 7

64 62 10
63

61

11
60
59
58 12

57
13
55 15
54 56 14
16
17
53 20
18 19 21

22
26 23
52 24
25

27

51 50
28
49 48 29
47 30
46
39
31 32
45 40 38
41
42 33 34
43
44 35

36
37
© Getty Images

7
HOW IS THE
WEATHER MADE?
A s you have already learned, weather is
caused by changes to temperature, air
pressure, humidity, cloud formation, precipitation
YOU WILL HAVE LEARNED SOME
and wind. But how do these components IMPORTANT WORDS RELATED TO
actually make a difference to what is happening THE WEATHER:
in the air outside?
Well, most weather happens in a part of the
Earth’s atmosphere that is closest the ground – a PRECIPITATION CLOUDS HUMIDITY
region known as the troposphere. The Sun,
which has a temperature of 15 million degrees TROPOSPHERE VAPOUR HIGH LOW
Celsius (27 million degrees Fahrenheit), heats up
this layer through solar radiation. Yet it doesn’t PRESSURE WIND TEMPERATURE
warm everywhere on Earth to the same
temperature! This is why some places are
freezing cold and others feel boiling hot.
This difference in heat is important. Since there
are hot and cold parts, the air moves, resulting in
changes in air pressure – the weight of the air
molecules pressing down on earth. The more
QUICK QUIZ
tightly packed these molecules are, the greater Can you use those words to complete the following sentences?
the air pressure will be, which has an effect on And here’s the twist: one of the words is used twice!
whether you have good weather (high pressure)
or clouds and rain (low pressure). 1 When the Sun’s rays warms the surface of Earth, it affects the
This is how it works: air pressure is lower in
__________ of the air.
warm air than in cold air. When the air is warm,
the molecules are less densely packed, and 2 __________ is a measure of the amount of water __________
when the air is cold, the molecules are very close
present in the air.
together. The less dense it is, warm air rises and
draws moisture from the ground. Cold air then 3 The lowest region of the atmosphere on Earth is called the
zips in beneath – a change in air pressure that
__________.
creates wind.
The reason high pressure tends to generally 4 __________ is liquid or frozen water. It falls to Earth as rain, snow,
cause fine weather is because denser, high
hail, ice and more!
pressure air pushes down on the surface of
Earth, and becomes warmer and drier. Now, as
5 Too much water __________ in the air causes __________ to form.
low-pressure humid air rises, it cools. Water
vapour in the air condenses into small water 6 The weight of air molecules pushing down on the Earth’s surface is
droplets or ice crystals (meaning it turns from a
called air __________.
gas into a liquid), and these stick to dust, ice or
sea salt that is present in the air, creating clouds. 7 __________ pressure is caused by the densely packed molecules
When those droplets start to combine with
in cold air pushing down on Earth.
other droplets, they become heavy. They’re
pulled to Earth as precipitation, which means 8 __________ is caused by the differences in atmospheric pressure.
anything wet that falls from the sky, including
rain and snow! In fact, the system we have just 9 __________ pressure is caused by less dense warm air rising.
described can cause all sorts of different weather
events, some more extreme than others! 3. Troposphere. 4. Precipitation. 5. Vapour, clouds. 6. Pressure. 7. High. 8. Wind. 9. Low.
ANSWERS: 1: Temperature. 2. Humidity, vapour.

8
 HOW IS THE WEATHER MADE?

TROPOSPHERE

WORD SEARCH
Now, can you find those words? They may be positioned up,
down, forwards, backwards or diagonally.

W A W I N D X E C R B P H N D
WATCH THIS! Z X N X K E E O Y F I R W F A
WHAT ARE THE LAYERS L T L X Q C L O U D S E P F I
OF THE ATMOSPHERE? F E G Z P W H Z N H O C H V J
Scan with your R M H F L B Y F H B M I X A G
phon e or tablet
https://bit.ly/3n8Bga4
V P V E O O W M G J Q P P P P
X E L K J Q Y D G F N I N O H
T R O P O S P H E R E T H U I
Q A A A O Z R B V N G A U R G
I T I L B W E X Q G O T M B H
G U L W S O S I P S I I I N U
M R S N S S S U S R M O D G U
X E P Q K G U O G L V N I G C
N Q R Y V Q R K O W O Y T X V
G C L E F R E K G S C W Y P
© Getty Images

9
WHY IS THE WEATHER
IMPORTANT TO ME?
Y ou may think the weather only affects what clothes
you wear, or whether you should play
outdoors or not. But the weather is important
WEATHER REDISTRIBUTES HEAT
Winds and ocean currents transfer
surplus heat from Earth’s equator to
in so many other ways. For starters, it has the polar regions so places don’t get
too hot or cold!
been found that the weather can affect your
mood: people appear happier, less tired
and more generous when it is sunny than
when it is raining or cloudy. But people can
become angrier when it is too hot, and
more irritated when it is humid. Weather
can be stressful too.
After all, Earth relies on weather for so much.
We need rain to keep our planet’s rivers and lakes
topped up and flowing, providing a habitat for
many species and giving us an important
source of drinkable freshwater. Without
rain, many crops would die, reducing the
amount of food we can eat. We’d also find it much RAIN HELPS FARMERS
harder to stay clean, and our towns and cities would be TO GROW CROPS
more polluted – rain washes the air of dirt and debris. Crops need air, water
and sunlight to grow. As
Then there’s the wind, which moves pollen and seeds long as there isn’t too
around, allowing plants to grow and thrive. Meanwhile, much rain, farmers can
enjoy a good harvest.
clouds protect the planet from the intense heat of the Sun,
lowering the average temperature so we don’t burn to a
crisp. Weather has made planet Earth a place where life
can flourish. It is even helping us to generate electricity.
One day, even your enjoyment of videogames may depend
on the weather!

HOW DOES THE WHAT’S THE

WEATHER?
HOW ARE YOU
FEELING?
WEATHER MAKE
YOU FEEL?
Do you love the Sun, but hate the rain? Do you like
playing in the snow, but stay indoors when it’s
windy? Weather can have an effect on your mood,
so why not keep a diary of how you feel each day?
Write the current weather in the first box, then
describe how you are feeling. Now, list the things
you can do in that kind of weather, and write down
the things the weather is stopping you from doing.
What sort of weather do you like the most?

10
 WIND BLOWS AIR POLLUTION AWAY
WHY IS THE WEATHER IMPORTANT TO ME?
On a still day, pollution builds up,
which affects the quality of the air you
breathe. Wind can freshen things up.

COLOUR ME IN!
Windmills make use of wind power to grind grain into flour. The angled
blades of the windmill catch the wind, forcing them to turn. These are
connected to a drive shaft, which rotates one of two large, flat, round
millstones. Flour is produced by pouring grain into the central hole of
the turning millstone. Bread is best produced in humid weather.

WEATHER CAN SUPPLY

ELECTRICITY
Energy from sunlight can be
converted into electricity, and
wind can turn blades to
IT CAN MAKE generate power.
US HEALTHIER
Although you should
always wear suncream,
the Sun’s ultraviolet light
provides a good dose of
vitamin D.

WHAT CAN WHAT CAN’T DO YOU LIKE

YOU DO? YOU DO? THIS WEATHER?
© Getty Images

11
HOW DO WE FORECAST
THE WEATHER?
W eather is unpredictable. There are so
many different things that can affect it,
which is why the life of a weather forecaster is
WARM FRONT
A mass of warm air is
very difficult indeed. It only takes one small moving forward and rising
over cold air in the direction
change to make a forecast wrong. Yet, since of the semi-circles.
changes can happen very quickly, no one can
really predict what is going to happen in a few
days time with total accuracy.
Sometimes it is hard to predict what will
happen even on the same day. On 15 October
1987, a British weather forecaster called Michael
Fish told viewers of the TV channel BBC1 that
England was not going to be struck by a
hurricane. A few hours later, the worst storm to NOW YOU SEE IT...!
UNDER PRESSURE! This symbol means the
hit the South East of England in 300 years
Isobars show atmospheric weather will be generally
caused widespread damage, as well as killing pressure in millibars. The cloudy, although the Sun
lower numbers show low will make an appearance.
19 people.
pressure, and higher numbers
To help make their reports more accurate, show high pressure.
weather forecasters – or meteorologists, as they
are known – use lots of technology. They gather
huge amounts of data from weather stations READ BETWEEN
across the world. Information from Doppler THE LINES
radars perched on towers, for example, allows If the isobars are
close together then
them to get up-to-date readings of it indicates windier
temperature, precipitation, cloud coverage, weather.
wind speed, wind direction and lots more.
Meteorologists also rely on weather
satellites, which monitor Earth from space.
They can give a view of the tops of clouds,
measure the temperature of ocean water, and
even see where hurricanes are heading! The
first weather satellite, Vanguard 2, was
launched in 1959, but the technology is much
better today. Infrared images can clearly show
SYMBOLIC GESTURES!
storms, for instance. Weather experts can even
Here are some weather symbols that you may see on a weather map, whether
see pollution.
on TV, in a weather app, online or in a newspaper. They are based on symbols
For greater speed and accuracy, used by the Met Office. Can you work out what each one of them may be? Match
meteorologists process the data in real-time them up with the words below.
using computers – the one used by the Met
Office cost £1.2 billion! Computer programs are 1 SUNNY INTERVALS 2 CLEAR SKY 3 THUNDERSTORM
able to model the atmosphere, and the
software can quickly alter the weather 4 HEAVY SNOW 5 HEAVY RAIN 6 LIGHT SNOW
predictions if there is a rapid change in
7 LOW-LEVEL CLOUD 8 LIGHT RAIN 9 SLEET 10 FOG
weather. The more information they can gather
and the faster computers can process it, the 11 DUST 12 TROPICAL STORM 13 MIST 14 DRIZZLE
more accurate reports will become.
15 HAZE 16 HAIL 17 MEDIUM-LEVEL CLOUD 18 SUNNY
12
 HOW DO WE FORECAST THE WEATHER?

MAKE YOUR OWN

PREDICTION
See how accurate your own forecasts can be. First of all, consider the
40 °C
time of year: is it spring, summer, autumn or winter? What kind of
COLD FRONT 35 °C weather do you expect around this period? Now, look outside the
A mass of cold air is moving 30 °C window. Try and guess what the weather will be tomorrow, and then
forward and pushing 25 °C predict the following four days.
beneath warm air. The
triangles on this boundary
Next, at the same time each day, write down the actual weather.
20 °C
line show what direction the Were your forecasts correct? Don’t worry if they weren’t; you will soon
cold air is moving in. 15 °C
learn how to use different tools to help you with your forecasts. And
10 °C remember this fact: a professional five-day forecast is only correct 90
5 °C per cent of the time.
0 °C
-5 °C
-10 °C
-15 °C MY WEATHER PREDICTIONS
-20 °C
FOR THE WEEK
MON TUE WED THU FRI
THERE’S A STORM BREWING
Grey clouds spell trouble:
they mean that heavy rain,
hail or snow are on the way.
If there’s a lightning bolt,
thunderstorms are due.

THE WEATHER FOR THE WEE

K
MON TUE WED THU FRI
FEELING HOT, HOT, HOT!
Temperature is shown as a
figure (in degrees Celsius or
Fahrenheit). Red indicates a
high temperature, while blue
is cold.

FOG
MIST

HAZE
© Getty Images

13
WHATEVER THE
WEATHER: PUZZLES
QUIZ PUZZLE
HOW MUCH DO
YOU KNOW ABOUT
THE NUCLEUS?
What is the name of a
scientist who studies
the weather?
A. Meteorologist
Complete the puzzle to discover
one way you can get a weather
forecast from a meteorologist. ?
B. Biologist
C. Sociologist
1 2 3
When there is high
pressure, what
weather can we
expect?
A: Clouds
4 5 6
B: Clear skies
C: Gales

What is not affected

by the weather?
A: The clothes you will wear
7 8 9
B: Some sporting events
C: Whether you should tidy
your room 2 5 4

What can’t the

sun do?
A: Give us a dose of vitamin D
B: Damage our skin
C: Freeze water 6 9 8

Which of these is
an example of
precipitation?
A: Snow
B: Hail
3 7 1
C: Gales

ANSWERS: A, A, C, C, B

14
 WHATEVER THE WEATHER: PUZZLES
HOT OR COLD?
Canary HOT
GREENLAND OR
Islands COLD
ICELAND
HOT
Mongolia OR
COLD
MONGOLIA
HOT
CYPRUS
Iceland OR
MOROCCO COLD

CANARY ISLANDS
HOT
Greenland OR
COLD
HOT
Cyprus OR
COLD
HOT
Morocco OR
COLD
ANSWERS: Hot, cold, cold, cold, hot, hot

TRUE OR FALSE? DRAW IT!

Which of these devices are used to measure temperature?
Weather is created in the lowest Draw a picture of it.
part of Earth’s atmosphere
ACCELEROMETER CYCLOMETER
TRUE OR FALSE
THERMOMETER SEISMOMETER
Snow is a type of weather ODOMETER
TRUE OR FALSE

The planet Mars affects

Earth’s weather
TRUE OR FALSE

We can forecast weather with

100 percent accuracy
TRUE OR FALSE

The first weather satellite

© Getty Images

was launched in 1960

TRUE OR FALSE
ANSWERS: True, true, false, false, true ANSWERS: Thermometer
15
 JOIN THE DOTS! SPOT THE
These children are having fun in the Sun.
For this sapling to grow, the boy will need sunlight, water,
air and nutrients. Help him to plant it by joining the dots.

3 4

AT THE MOVIES!
Across
2. In this film, Princess Anna hopes to break Snow Queen
Elsa’s icy spell
3. Complete the film title: ______ With a Chance of Meatballs
5. This magical nanny – first name Mary – blew in on the
east wind
Down 5
1. When a house landed on a wicked witch
in a tornado, who did Dorothy visit for
help in the Land of Oz?
4. The first Percy Jackson movie in 2005
included a lot of this!
ANSWERS: 1. Wizard. 2. Frozen. 3. Cloudy. 4. Lightning. 5. Poppins.

16
 WHATEVER THE WEATHER: PUZZLES

DIFFERENCE
But can you spot seven differences?
COLOUR ME IN!
The sweating process is happening in this picture. Even though the boy
will have used suncream, his body will be cooling down naturally.
When you colour in the picture, why not add some beads of sweat?

DID YOU
KNOW?
When our bodies are hotter than
37 degrees Celsius (98.6 degrees
Fahrenheit), sweat glands make
perspiration. The liquid leaving
through your pores and ending
up on your skin is 99 per cent
water – the rest is fat, salt and
chemicals like ammonia.

WEATHER SAYINGS!
Lots of people use folklore to predict the weather. Folklore isn’t scientific – it’s a tale that is passed down. For example, someone

© Getty Images
may say “rain before seven, fine by eleven”. They believe that if it rains before 7am then most of the storm will have passed by
11am. As with many of these phrases, there is some truth in it. Can you complete these sayings by unscrambling the anagrams
in each sentence?

Red sky at GTINH, shepherd’s delight

Red sky in the NROMGNI, shepherd’s warning

WSCO lie down when it is about to rain

When dew is on the grass, INRA will never come to pass

The higher the USOLCD, the finer the weather

Clear NOMO, frost soon

ANSWERS: Night, morning, cows, rain, clouds, moon.
17
 WORD SEARCH
Earth’s atmosphere is 78 per cent nitrogen. It also includes 21 per cent oxygen, 0.93 per cent Argon, 0.04 per cent carbon dioxide and
trace elements of neon, helium, methane, krypton and hydrogen, as well as water vapour. Can you find those words in this grid?

W R C D X L V S Y I D U C B Q X E E R Y Z X P Z H V W A H H
P Q G N B B K S U D D L T R S V S W V R G H J B U F Y Y B T
U O Q P T S Y J A Z N C M M D I V W C G J Y B Y G Z X E R S
R R L I Q Y X X V L B L Q S Y W O T H U W V M P P E Z C O V
J X Y A I F C Z E P V U N B O X Y G E N Z W H O M N A A A W
I V M D O Z Q L M O G C A R B O N D I O X I D E H D N S B B
C K B G E R M C N X O B T O X L P D C U J V C L F W X V X E
E R S N O B D D I U E X A J O H U T H Y T N Y W P Z J K U K
V X A S Z A J S T P A K R P A P X S E H S T C N J L F L L M
V T U D M C K M R O R L F S I L B I M P B T O A K E O Z O O
D T L P H S V Y O Y G R P M C V M U W H O A T V K N M D A W
T U G G O Z J Z G R O B D K F K S M V X X E I W N O E T Z F
M T U O Z U F B E F N I R K V T R X G P M Y Y P I H N O W L
U N R F B M D A N Q L A X I C Q K W F D Q X U T H X Y U N Z
S H Y D R O G E N A J J V V U H N K J U V W B I N X J R I J
A J S J Y D B G H Z B V M P S A K K R Z J B M S E N W B T S
Q Y M P Q T X V Q H Q O O L G S R N Q F Z Z W C R N Z Z V K
Q I O Z B S W F U C Y T O V S I Y H K B S N L N T Q K M Q L
N D G F M W L N E L E N T G Q W P G J W G N V R C V X T R V
X N F C O F H R M Y Y S I N S A T W D D H X B O S H E D J K
F Y Y F H Z A D V Y O X G J I T O O S Y K Y T M U R Q B C P
V B V I K K D H X R B I G Y W E N Z M I Y O F V D T D O H I
V I B K V Y J K E D M Y I D F R J M R C B J V H I K Q P E Y
S H R M F D S I G Y P W S J S V T E C Z H H S M B I B Z C E
Y N P K J Q L J E R J N R J N A P T J H P B H T I M D G G P
O O N D W T X S B O S L F A I P E H I D U A X K M I V I D V
W F B F K M Z G P R M N U B Y O Q A F D W H H M E T O F Q H
W J Q O C S I K W A B A I N Q U X N Q M D M M Y P J E D O W
S A R H B I H I B W T D Q A V R T E I H C K B T R K G M K R
Q O W G I V E F K V R K S F Z Q S P H E L I U M E K E V Y A

CARBON DIOXIDE NITROGEN METHANE OXYGEN ARGON

WATER VAPOUR HYDROGEN KRYPTON HELIUM NEON

18
 WHATEVER THE WEATHER: PUZZLES

ODD ONE OUT! FIND SOME WORDS

All except one of these instruments can help How many words can you find in the word
meteorologists forecast the weather. Do you know which
one has been made up? PRECIPITATION
To start you off, we can find rain!

A B
Barometer Anemometer
Measures air pressure Measures wind speed

C D
Wind Vane Compass
Indicates which way the Works out the distance of WHAT HAVE 5
wind is blowing from the weather from Earth
YOU LEARNED?
Having read the opening chapter and tried the puzzles, what
can you remember? Write down all of the facts you can recall.
You have five minutes, so make sure you time yourself!

E
Weather balloon
Carries instruments to measure
atmospheric pressure

ANSWER: D
© Getty Images

19
DIFFERENT KINDS
OF WEATHER
S ome days are wet, while others are dry. Sometimes
you will struggle to see your hands in front of your
face, and at others, it is so cold outside that everywhere
is covered in snow! Maybe you’re walking home from
school and struggling to move because the wind is
pushing you back. Or perhaps you’re covering your ears
as yet another clasp of thunder rips through the air.
What makes weather so fascinating is that there are
different kinds of it – primarily sunny, cloudy, windy,
stormy and rainy. Over the next few pages, you can look
in more detail at those weather events and explore how
GIVE IT A GO!
Have a look at the landscape. What would happen if it was:
SUNNY
SNOWING
20
they happen. You will also encounter some extreme
weather, from hurricanes to tornadoes, and see why
weather can be dangerous and amazing.
Remember that weather can overlap. It can be windy
and raining at the same time, for instance. Weather
events can also be more or less likely to happen
depending on where you are in the world. You’ve got a
much greater chance of getting wet in a tropical
rainforest where it rains almost every day than in Sydney,
Australia, which has more than 340 days of sunshine
each year!
WINDY
RAINING
DIFFERENT KINDS OF WEATHER

WATCH THIS!
WEATHER TYPES QUIZ

Scan with your

phon e or tablet
https://bit.ly/3FcJaFV

© Getty Images

21
SUNNY DAYS
M ost of us love a sunny day. It’s warm, dry and bright,
making it the ideal weather to go outdoors in. It also
reduces stress and encourages people to exercise. There are
dangers, of course. Overexposure to the Sun’s ultraviolet light
can cause your skin to burn, so you need to put on plenty of
suncream. Sunny days can also leave you tired, sweaty and
dehydrated, which is why it’s important to drink plenty of water.
But what defines a sunny day? Well, the first thing to mention
is that the Sun is always there. If it’s raining, cloudy or blowing a
gale, the Sun doesn’t disappear. It simply becomes hidden from
view. Meteorologists won’t say the day is sunny if the Sun only
pokes through a cloud for an hour or two, though. A sunny day
cannot have more than an eighth of cloud coverage, and it must
also be free of rain.
If there are more clouds then the day may be defined as
mostly sunny or partly sunny. In some cases, you may hear that
the weather is going to be partly cloudy, but that means the
same as partly sunny. In all types of
weather, though, the Sun is doing the
same thing. It’s out there 147.55 million
kilometres (93,000 miles) away from Earth,
generating huge amounts of heat and light.
The Sun does this at its very centre – called its
core – where the temperature is 15 million degrees Celsius
(27 million degrees Fahrenheit). Hydrogen is converted into
helium at the core in a process called nuclear fusion. Thermal
radiation then transfers the heat through the layers surrounding
the core.
Eventually, the heat reaches the surface of the Sun, where the
temperature is now a still blisteringly hot 5,726 degrees Celsius
(10,430 degrees Fahrenheit). From there, heat and light travels
through the vacuum of space and reaches Earth. Some is
bounced back into space off our planet’s atmosphere and
clouds, but about half is absorbed, keeping Earth warm.

PICK STRAWBERRIES
Strawberries ripen
from early summer to
early autumn in the
UK. They’re delicious
with cream.

HAVE A WATER FIGHT

A water fight is a
great way to cool
down. When the
water evaporates, it
takes heat with it.

MAKE ICE LOLLIES GO TO THE BEACH

Make sure you wear
Lollies have a high suncream and
water content, which reapply it after you
will keep you hydrated have been for a swim
HAVE A PICNIC in the blazing heat of in the sea.
Pack a picnic with the Sun.
fresh fruit and
vegetables, and
avoid food that will
spoil in the heat.

BUILD AN OUTDOOR DEN

© Getty Images

Create a den out of

an old sheet slung
over some trees, and
you can shelter from
the Sun’s rays.
22
 SUNNY DAYS

SUNCREAM FIND THE

This girl is applying suncream, which protects human skin
from the Sun’s powerful ultraviolet light. It does so by
tackling two dangerous radiation wavelengths from the
Sun called Ultraviolet A and B (or UVA and UVB for short).
OBJECTS
UVA ages the skin and UVB burns. Both also cause skin
cancer. Suncream is your way of fighting back by creating These children are having fun outdoors in the
a barrier using minerals such as titanium oxide or zinc Sun, but can you find these 10 items?
oxide. This reflects and scatters UV light away.
Suncream can also use organic compounds to absorb 1 3
UV radiation, converting it to a safe, low level of heat. To 2
gain the best protection, use suncream with the highest
Sun Protection Factor (SPF) number. Always reapply every
two hours, no matter what suncream you use.
4 5

6 7 8

9
10

23
CLOUDY DAYS
G aze up at the sky, and describe any
clouds you may see. Are they white and
fluffy, or dark and dense? You can generally
guess what the weather is going to do next by
LOW CLOUDS
studying clouds. The darker they are, the more (UP TO 7,000 FEET)
likely it is to rain. When there are no clouds in
the sky, you can expect a dry day.

.0
If you have ever been on an aeroplane, you

A4
, CC BY-S
may have enjoyed a close-up look at the

g-cats
clouds. Sometimes, when you are flying above

in
them, they look like a carpet that you could

tch
cra
-s
walk on, but sadly you can’t. Clouds are simply ch
ou
©C
made of water vapour and air. They are
Cumulonimbus Stratus Nimbostratus
formed when water on the surface of Earth is
Huge clouds with dark Often appearing low Grab an umbrella.
heated by the Sun, causing it to evaporate.
bases that are also on the ground and Rain or snow is likely
You can see how this happens yourself. Put known as looking like fog, these to be on the way.
a bowl of water outside on a warm day, and thunderstorm clouds. clouds can bring
the level will start to drop. It does so because Bad weather looms! drizzle or snow.
liquid water is changed into an invisible gas by
the heat. This gas is water vapour, and it
WHAT TYPE

a, CC BY 3.0 US
escapes into the atmosphere.
Now, imagine if you had a large amount of
OF CLOUD
CAN YOU SEE?
water – a lake or the sea, perhaps. A lot of

hth
res
water vapour will be rising into the air. When
sh
ul
K
n
ru
the gas meets with cooler temperatures, it ©A
Look outside, and see if
starts to turn back into a liquid (or ice, if it is Cumulus Stratocumulus you can match the clouds
really cold). The droplets come into contact above you to one of
These clouds look Usually seen before or
these pictures
with particles in the air, such as dust. When like cotton wool, and after bad weather, these
enough of these get together, a cloud forms. are usually seen in common clouds are
fair weather. darker than cumulus.
But how do they stay in the air? Well,
clouds contain water, so they are
actually very heavy (weigh
an empty glass, fill it with
water, and see how the
weight changes!). A typical
MID-LEVEL CLOUDS
white fluffy cloud weighs (7,000 TO 23,000
500,000 kilograms (1.1
million pounds), but because FEET)
the water droplets are small,
the force of the warm air flowing
3.0 A

underneath keeps pushing them

atcher, CC BY-S

up. Clouds are also warmer than

.0

the air around them, and warm air

SA 3
udw

BY-
Clo

is lighter than cool air.

CC
at
re

e,

G e
he i dg
©T ©B

WATCH THIS! Altostratus Altocumulus

TYPES OF CLOUDS Found in the middle of Usually a sign the
the troposphere, these weather is about to
Scan with your clouds diffuse sunlight.
You won’t find shadows
change, these clouds
are made of cool water
phone or tablet
https://bit.ly/34q9uiU
on the ground! and ice crystals.

24
 CLOUDY DAYS
HIGH CLOUDS
(16,000 TO 43,0000 FEET)

C BY-SA 3.0

BY-SA 3.0
, CC
k, C

ow
me

ad
a
oN

Sh
ol ng
icc ivi
©P ©L

Cirrus Cirrocumulus Cirrostratus

Thin and wispy, these Looking like a load of cotton These clouds are very
clouds are made up of balls, these are made from thin, and indicate a
tiny ice crystals. A extremely cool water lot of moisture very
storm may be brewing. droplets and ice crystals. high in the sky.

MAKING A CONTRAIL
These straight-line clouds are created by
planes. It’s a condensation trail (contrail)
formed when warm, moist air from a
plane’s exhaust meets drier cool air.

FORMING A CLOUD
Eventually, it changes
STARTING TO RAIN to a liquid in a
process known as
If the water droplets condensation.
in a cloud get larger,
they fall to the
ground as rain.

EVAPORATING
WATER
The Sun warms the
water, causing the
liquid to evaporate

DID YOU
© Getty Images, Wikimedia Commons, Public Domain.

KNOW?
Clouds can also form due to RISING WATER
weather fronts. They are VAPOUR
created when warm air The warm water rises
replaces cold air, or when into the troposphere,
cold air pushes warm where the air gets
air upwards. progressively colder

25
RAINY DAYS
W e have already seen how clouds form. We have
also seen that clouds can lead to rain, as well as
other types of precipitation. But let’s take a closer look
at how that happens – starting from the moment water
vapour condenses on dust and other particles higher in
the atmosphere.
Remember how, at this height, the temperature is
cooler. Water droplets form on the particles, and these
create clouds. Over a small amount of time, the water
droplets can start to join together, getting bigger and
bigger. Eventually, they become too large and heavy,
and start to fall as precipitation because they cannot be
held by the upward current of air anymore.
The type of precipitation you will see depends on how
big and heavy the combined droplets have become. If
the drops are small in diameter (about 0.5mm, or 0.02
inches) then the liquid water will fall as drizzle. This is
sometimes called fine rain (beware: it still gets you wet!).
If they are larger in diameter (about 1-2mm, or 0.04 –
0.08 inches), the liquid water falls as ‘proper’ rain.
In general, the bigger and heavier the raindrops are,
the harder and faster they will fall. An average raindrop
falling from about 760 metres (2,500 feet), for example,
will reach speeds of 22 kilometres per hour (14 miles
per hour). Larger raindrops will hit Earth at about
32 km/h (20 mph).
But how many water droplets are actually needed
for rain? According to experts, a raindrop contains
about 1 million water droplets. It also takes 700 drizzle
drops to make up a raindrop. It gives you an idea of the
billions of water droplets contained in the clouds: in fact,
there are 100 million droplets in every cubic metre of
air! Think of that when you’re grabbing your umbrella or
pulling up your hood.

PLAY IN THE MUD

Mud forms when soil,
clay, silt or loam is
mixed with water.
Pull on your wellies!

WATCH FOR A
RAINBOW! WATCH THE CLOUDS
SING A SONG! Rainbows are optical SMELL THE AIR
illusions that form when Pay close attention to Rain creates an aroma
There are many sunlight is scattered the look of a cloud called petrichor. It’s
songs about the rain. from raindrops into during the rain. They caused by two chemicals:
Why not try Gene your eyes. are dark because less one released by bacteria
Kelly’s ‘Singin’ In light is being reflected. found in the earth,
the Rain’? and an oil secreted by
thirsty plants.

JUMP IN PUDDLES
Did you know that
when rain lands in a
puddle, it splashes
because a layer of air
beneath the water
drop gets trapped?

26
 RAINY DAYS

FIND A MATCH!
ODD ONE OUT!
Which of these animals hates the rain?

A B
Frogs Snails

C D
Pythons Deer

WATCH THIS!
HOW DOES RAIN FORM?

Scan with your

phone or tablet
https://bit.ly/3n9VAYC
E
Bats
ANSWERS: E

© Getty Images

27
FOGGY DAYS
I magine sticking your head in the clouds. It’s likely

FOGGY FACTS!
that you’re not going to be able to see much
around you. Now, imagine stepping out in thick fog.
The effect is going to be much the same. You may
struggle to see a friend waving to you, or trees in a
E BETWEEN THE DEW POINT
nearby field. It may even be impossible to see cars FOG FORMS WHEN THE DIFFERENC
IS LESS THAN 2.5 DEGREES
coming down the road. Fog is fascinating, but it is
AND THE TEMPERATURE OF THE AIR
also potentially dangerous!
CELSIUS (4 DEGREES FAHRENHEIT).
Fog and clouds form in the exact same way:
water vapour either condenses into tiny droplets of THE FOGGIEST PLACE IN THE WORLD IS GRAND BANKS, AN AREA
liquid water, or freezes. The difference lies in where
OF THE ATLANTIC OCEAN THAT IS CLOSE TO THE COAST OF
the condensation takes place. While clouds are up
NEWFOUNDLAND, CANADA. IT HAS MORE THAN 200 DAYS OF
in the sky, fog touches the ground. For this to
happen, there must be a lot of water vapour in the FOG EVERY YEAR!
atmosphere, as well as small particles such as dust
ONE OF THE DRIEST PLACES ON
or pollution. The air near the ground also needs to
THE ATACAMA DESERT IN CHILE IS
MOVES INLAND, LARGE NETS
EARTH, BUT WHEN COASTAL FOG
be cool enough for gas to turn into a liquid.
There are different types of fog. Radiation fog is DROPLETS, WHICH THEN RUN
what you are most likely to see. It tends to form
ARE USED TO CAPTURE THE WATER
INTO A CANAL.
overnight during the autumn and winter when air
close to the ground is cooled by thermal radiation.
FOG CONTAINS UP TO 0.5ML OF WATER PER CUBIC METRE. IF YOU
As with clouds, moist air starts to condense, forming
FILLED AN OLYMPIC-SIZED SWIMMING POOL WITH FOG, THERE
water droplets, but radiation fog starts to disappear
once the ground warms up during the day. WOULD ACTUALLY ONLY BE 1.25 LITRES OF WATER IN THERE!
Valley fog, however, can be longer lasting.
Occurring in mountainous areas, it develops when
air is cooled on high ground. As it becomes dense
and heavy, the air sinks into the lower parts of a
valley where layers of fog build.
Other types include freezing fog, which can occur
on mountaintops when water vapour turns into
small ice crystals on solid surfaces. Then there’s
advection fog when moist, which sees warm air
blow over a cool surface such as snowy land or sea,
causing the air to become cooler too. Evaporation
fog works the other way around. This is caused by
cold air passing over warmer or moist land.

MIST OR FOG?
The more there is, the less you see!

Fog is when visibility is LESS than one

kilometre (half-a-mile)
Mist is when visibility is MORE than one
kilometre (half-a-mile)

28
 FOGGY DAYS

HELP THIS DRIVER TO GET HOME

Since fog reduces visibility, it causes many vehicle accidents every year. In the United States alone, there
are about 30,000 crashes. This driver has been caught in dense fog. Can you help them to get home?

© Getty Images

29
SNOWY DAYS
S nowy days are great fun! You can wrap up warm, invite your friends out
to play, and do amazing things such as build a snowman or make snow
angels! But how does snow form? As with rain, the formation of snow relies
on warm, moist air rising into the atmosphere, creating a cloud. As it meets
cold air that’s below 0 degrees Celsius (32 degrees Fahrenheit), the moisture
will freeze and form tiny ice crystals.
The ice crystals start sticking together as snowflakes and, because they are
heavy, they begin to drift towards the ground. As they fall, they start to meet
with the rising warm air. If the warmer air is only just above the freezing
temperature, the edges of the ice crystals will start to melt ever so slightly.
That’s enough for the falling snowflakes to start sticking together, making
them heavy enough to fall straight down to Earth’s surface.
There’s one other thing that is needed for you to have fun: a cold
ground. If it’s too warm (more than 2 degrees Celsius (35.6 degrees
Fahrenheit), then the snow will simply melt. Temperature
determines the type of snow you will see: either wet or
dry. You get dry snow when the surface air
temperature is below freezing because the flakes
haven’t had a chance to melt at the edges and stick
together. This kind of snow is powdery, and skiers
love it.
Wet snow is exciting too, though. The
snowflakes are larger, and they stick to lots of
surfaces when they land. It’s this kind of snow
that allows you to produce cool snowmen
and the best snowballs. The main
downside is that wet snow contains
more water than dry snow, so it’s
heavier. It’s more difficult to clear
COLOUR
from paths, and it’s actually
capable of causing roofs to
ME IN!
Even if it’s not snowing
collapse if the snow is outside, you can join in
thick enough. Snow the fun by colouring in
way? Yes way! this picture.

30
 SNOWY DAYS
1

MAKE THE PERFECT

SNOWBALL
WHAT YOU’LL NEED
• Some snow!

INSTRUCTIONS
1. GRAB WET SNOW: Wet snow is best for
making snowballs (and snowmen!) because
2 it has already become sticky.
2. APPLY SOME PRESSURE: Snow sticks
together in a ball because of the pressure
you apply to it using your hands.
3. PACK IT TIGHT: When you pack the snow,
some of it will melt.
4. GET READY TO THROW: Once you stop
pushing on the ball, the melted snow
quickly refreezes, gluing the ball into shape.

WHAT DID YOU LEARN?

Temperature is important. Ideally, it needs to
be just below freezing. Any colder and the
snow becomes too light and fluffy –
applying pressure won’t cause it to melt. If
it’s warmer, the snow turn to ice under
pressure. Don’t throw these, because they
could really hurt someone.

4
CREATE A SNOW
ANGEL 2 3
WHAT YOU’LL NEED
• Some snow!

INSTRUCTIONS
1. FIND DEEP SNOW: The deeper the snow,
the better, because you will want to make a
good impression in it!
2. LAY DOWN: Yes, it’s going to be cold, so
make sure you’re wrapped up warm. Now,
lay down on your back.
3. MOVE YOUR ARMS: Extend your arms so
© Getty Images

they are at both sides of your head, and

move them down to your body. Stand up
and admire!

31
WINDY DAYS
I t is not possible to actually see air. That’s
because air particles (a mixture of nitrogen,
oxygen and other gases) are spread so far
apart that wavelengths of light simply pass
through them. If they were closer together,
light would collide with the particles and send
colour to our eyes. But if we cannot see air,
how do we know it’s there?

WORDSEARCH
One of the more obvious ways is by feeling
it. Wind is described as moving air, and even
on a still day, you will feel the occasional
breeze on your face. In more extreme
circumstances, wind could knock you off your These locations are have very strong winds. Can you find them?
feet and cause damage to buildings. But wind
– no matter how fierce or gentle – is always COMMONWEALTH BAY, ANTARCTICA (50 MPH AVERAGE)
caused by the same thing: changes in
atmospheric pressure.
WELLINGTON, NEW ZEALAND (27 MPH AVERAGE)
Our planet is tilted on its axis by 23
MOUNT WASHINGTON, NEW HAMPSHIRE, USA (32 MPH AVERAGE)
degrees, so when the Sun heats the surface
of Earth, it creates patches of warm and cool MOUNT EVEREST (100 MPH AVERAGE)
air in our atmosphere. As the surface
becomes warm, the air above it heats up too. CAPE BLANCO, OREGON (100 MPH AVERAGE)
But since warm air is not as dense as cold air,
it expands and rises. This means there is less RIO GALLEGOS, ARGENTINA (30 MPH AVERAGE)
air pressing down on Earth, and an area of
E)
low pressure develops. GRUISSAN, FRANCE (18 MPH AVERAG
The nearest mass of cooler, higher-
pressure air moves in to fill the gap. It whips
K V W P T A P P R L G X F Q H W W M A N
under the rising warm air, creating wind.
S N A M Q P R W G E B A T D M N P U W Q
When you get a breeze, there is not much
difference between the temperature of the
B T M D N G G X W V N P L D D R U F H S
warm air and the cold air moving in. T E E M S U R F U X C R I L U E K Y I F
But if the difference between those B V X N D Pall Uneed
U resizing
N Q Z F H K E U K R L Y
temperatures is large, then you are going to R E H F Z W Q W I O N C Z F P G U L N Q
get stronger winds. L R L X E J M U A S B B R F S G O G E E
Now, there’s something else that affects the B E C W U W S V V B S C V N R P T S K L
wind: how Earth spins. This is called the
B S O V E O H F A A I A T W V X P C P E
Coriolis effect, and it affects the direction of
I T M R N L Q M J R S I N J O E I O S T
the wind’s movement. In the Northern
Hemisphere (the bit north of the equator),
T E M W W G L N T T I J A V H Q B U L E
wind shifts to the right. It is deflected left in R O O D A D O I W R B U G P Z N B C T Q
the Southern Hemisphere. S J N G U S C L N P S X Q S Y R L R D Z
Z I W E G K H R Y G S O D U S R A Z E H

DID YOU C
D
H
K
E
A
Q
N
V
P
E M I N Z T
L M H N A L
B
O
Q
O
Z
C
P
O
Y
S
N
C
R
V
O
O
N
B
KNOW? K F L X O B R D Y G W Q N D D M O W B K
The strongest winds in the Z Z T F H F C K R P T X A Q J B L O R N
Solar System are on the Q N H L T A M Q P V X O V Z T Q Y T K W
planet Neptune. Speeds
can reach 2,400 km/h M Y Z I W R G Y P P A W N T J L Y Q L H
(1,500 mph).

32
 WINDY DAYS

TRUE OR FALSE?
Wind is caused by a difference
in air pressure
TRUE OR FALSE

Air flows from low-pressure

areas to higher ones
TRUE OR FALSE

Winds are always the

same strength
TRUE OR FALSE

FEELING An east wind blows from

WINDY?
Your body also creates wind, but it’s
east to west
TRUE OR FALSE
nothing to do with the weather! Farts
are caused by a buildup of gas inside
you – and yes, they can be smelly. As
Dust can show the way
WARM AIR RISES the wind is blowing
for the noise, that’s due to the
When air is warmed up, it causes the amount of gas you have, how
molecules to vibrate. The more the
strongly it leaves your body, and the
TRUE OR FALSE
molecules move, the more they bump
into each other, which forces them vibration it causes to tissue inside
apart. This means the molecules take your bottom! Parp!
up more space, and the warm air
mass expands.

COOLER AIR
RUSHES IN
The heavier, colder air
mass moves down and
takes up the space left
by the warm air.

AREA OF LOW
PRESSURE
Since the warm air has IN COMES THE WIND!
risen, there’s less air
© Getty Images

pressing down on the The cold air nips under the warm
surface of Earth. air, and the movement is felt as
wind. You always get a flow from
an area of high pressure to an
area of low pressure.
ANSWERS: True, false, false, true, true.
33
THUNDER AND
LIGHTNING RIBBON
T hunderstorms are one of nature’s most stunning
shows, and you’re going to see and hear a lot of
them throughout your life. Each year, more than 16
LIGHTNING
If high cross winds
separate a bolt of
million thunderstorms occur around the world. They lightning, it creates a rare
but amazing ribbon
cause lightning to flash across darkened skies, the effect, as seen here in
air to fill with the loudest of booms, and the ground the Tucson Mountains,
Arizona, USA
to become soaked with heavy rain. If that wasn’t bad
enough, there’s a gusty wind too!
For thunder and lightning to happen, the
atmosphere has to be unstable. This means warm SHEET LIGHTNING
air rises quickly and meets much colder air above it. When clouds are lit by
The water vapour then turns into water droplets and lightning, but you can’t see the
discharge path of the strike,
cumulus clouds form. But as more warm air rises, it’s called sheet lightning.
the clouds become larger and grow vertically.
They turn into cumulonimbus clouds, which as you
saw on pages 24 and 25, are also known as
thunderstorm clouds.
Now, a lot is going on inside the cloud. Moisture
and water droplets are carried high by updraughts. STACCATO
They freeze, which makes them turn into ice LIGHTNING
crystals and fall through the cloud as hail. But Staccato lightning
describes a strike that
because there are other ice crystals in the cloud, goes form the cloud to
they all start to bump into each other at very high the ground. It’s one of
the most common types,
speeds. The rubbing causes the crystals to break up, captured here in
and the smaller ice crystal particles to become Haswell, UK.
positively charged. The larger ones become CENTRE OF POSITIVE
CHARGE
negatively charged.
Since the small particles are light, they hang
NATURAL LIGHT
around at the top of the cloud, but the larger,
SHOW
heavier ones drop towards the bottom. This creates
A stunning show of
separate areas of positive and negative charges, as lightning and billowing
you can see in the picture below. clouds in Byron Bay, New
South Wales, Australia.
This difference causes a buildup of electrical CENTRE OF NEGATIVE
energy, which is discharged as lightning. The reason CHARGE
you also hear a big clap of thunder is due to the air
heating up and expanding. Turn to page 93 to
understand why this happens.

SMALL CENTRE OF
POSITIVE CHARGE
LIGHTNING
FROM SPACE!
This image was taken
from the International CITY STRIKES
© Nasa, Karen Nyberg

Space Station, showing a

thunderstorm moving Lightning creates a
across Asia. dramatic backdrop above
the skyscrapers of Canary
Wharf in London, UK.

34
 THUNDER AND LIGHTNING

STRUCK BY
LIGHTNING LIGHTNING
These five famous buildings have been struck by lightning. Can
you name them, and do you know where they are located? FAST FACTS
CTRICITY
LIGHTNING IS A DISCHARGE OF ELE

LIGHTNING STRIKES AT 270,000 MILES PER HOUR

A B C A SINGLE BOLT OF LIGHTNING CAN STRIKE

MORE THAN ONE PLACE AT THE SAME TIME

DID YOU YOU CAN’T GET THUNDER

KNOW? WITHOUT LIGHTNING
This building gets
hit by lightning
around 500 times
VOLCANIC
D E a year!
ERUPTIONS CAN
TRIGGER LIGHTNING
Tower, Paris, France. E. Empire State Building, New York, USA. STRIKES
ANSWERS: A. The Shard, London, England. B. Taj Mahal, Agra, India. C. Pyramids, Giza, Egypt. D. Eiffel

WHERE LIGHTNING
STRIKES
CLOUD-TO-AIR
CLOUD-TO-CLOUD Bolts of lightning can go
up as well as down,
Lightning can strike between
striking from the
clouds, with the strikes
positively charged tops
running between the positive
of the clouds.
and negative charges.

INTRA-CLOUD DID YOU

CLOUD-TO-GROUND
Lightning we’re familiar
Different charges
within a cloud causes
strikes that you won’t
KNOW?
Lightning rods are a piece of metal
with: an ionised area be able to see.
between the positive and placed at the top of a building to
negative charges sends a protect it from a lightning strike.
bolt towards Earth.
Scientist Benjamin Franklin
invented them in 1752 when he
© Getty Images

realised that lightning could

be linked to electricity.

35
HURRICANES
H urricanes are very large tropical storms that can cause a huge
amount of destruction. Blowing at wind speeds of up to 300
kilometres per hour (190 miles per hour), they begin life as
thunderstorms. They form in tropical waters about five to 30 degrees
latitude north or south of the equator (which you can think of as a line
that wraps around the middle of Earth). They are also typically 480
kilometres (300 miles) wide, but they can be much larger than that!
The name given to this weather phenomenon depends on the wind
speed and where it is happening. If winds are reaching 62 km/h (39
mph), meteorologists call it a tropical depression. But if the winds are
recording a higher speed, it is referred to as a tropical storm. It
becomes a hurricane when it reaches 119 kph (74 mph) but that’s only
if it happens in the North Atlantic Ocean or Northeast Pacific Ocean.
If the winds are in the Indian Ocean or the South Atlantic Ocean,
they are called tropical cyclones. In the Northwest Pacific Ocean,
they are typhoons, yet they all form in the same way. They need the
sea surface temperature to be at least 27 degrees Celsius (82
degrees Fahrenheit), which warms the air and has the effect of
allowing heat and moisture to rise and create thunderstorms. As the
heat continues to rapidly rise, more energy is provided, in the process
making the winds even stronger. Earth’s rotation causes the clouds
to spin.
Most hurricanes form between June and November each year,
peaking around August and September. This is called the hurricane
season, and it’s when the upper ocean waters are at their warmest.
As the hurricanes embark on a journey and travel over colder waters,
they begin to lose energy. This also happens when they hit land. But
they often don’t slow enough to avoid causing lots of damage.
Hurricanes are so powerful that they can smash buildings to pieces
and uproot trees.

DID YOU
KNOW?
If there are more than 21
hurricanes, names are
picked from a WATCH THIS!
supplemental list. These
NASA EXPLAINS HOW HURRICANES FORM
are also used in
alphabetical order.
Scan with your
phon e or tablet
https://bit.ly/3DRLr8N

1. CLOUD FORMATION 2. CLOUDS START TO ROTATE

Clouds are formed over warm As Earth spins, the wind
tropical waters as the (which is travelling in a
seawater evaporates, rises straight line) is forced to
and cools. Surrounding humid curve, causing the clouds to
air rushes in to replace the spin. This is called the Coriolis
warm air. This air also rises. effect. You learned about it
on page 32.

3. COOL AIR SINKS

The clouds are formed in
bands and the storm grows
as more heat rises. Cool, dry
air sinks in the centre of the
hurricane (the eye), as well as
at the edges of the storm.

36
 HURRICANES

EYE OF THE
STORM GET TO KNOW
A HURRICANE
The centre of a hurricane is called the eye, and it is typically
To help scientists to keep track of hurricanes, the World
30 to 65 kilometres (20 to 40 miles) across. There is very low
Meteorological Organisation gives every one of them a
air pressure in the eye of the storm, and if you were standing
name. In 2022, the names below have been chosen for
here, you’d find that the weather is very calm and clear.
hurricanes in the Caribbean Sea, Gulf of Mexico and
The winds surrounding the eye – the eyewall – are at their
North Atlantic. They will be used in alphabetical order,
strongest, though. The weather here is terrible! These winds
but can you reorder them?
cause an updraught or air from the surface of the ocean to
the top of the storm. This air flows over the clouds and over
the outer edge. Some goes the other way and into WALTER JULIA SHARY IAN
the centre.
BONNIE OWEN NICOLE
GASTON PAULA MARTIN

FAST SPINNERS ALEX TOBIAS LISA KARL

Hurricanes in the Northern Hemisphere spin anti-clockwise. DANIELLE HERMINE RICHARD

Those in the Southern Hemisphere spin clockwise. This is
because of the Coriolis effect, and it’s due to the way Earth
FIONA VIRGINIE EARL COLIN
spins. Winds moving north are diverted to the east and
winds moving south are diverted to the west. 1. 12.

2. 13.

3. 14.

4. 15.

5. 16.

6. 17.

7. 18.

NORTHERN HEMISPHERE 8. 19.

9. 20.

10. 21.

11.

Five letters of the alphabet are never used, because it’s

hard to find names starting with those letters. Can you
work out what those five letters are?
© Getty Images

SOUTHERN HEMISPHERE
37
TORNADOES
T ornadoes – or twisters, as they are also
called – are violently rotating columns of
air that stretch from a cloud to the ground.
They are similar to hurricanes because they
form in thunderstorms during unsettled
weather when warm, humid air meets
with cold, dry air. But they are COLD DRY AIR SOUTH DAKOTA

also different in so many ways.

Instead of forming over
NEBRASKA
water, tornadoes typically
form over land during what TORNADO ALLEY
are known as supercell COLORADO
KANSAS
thunderstorms. These thunderstorms
contain what is called a mesocyclone –
updraughts of wind that rotate as they rise. JET STREAM
OKLAHOMA
High winds mean the rotation gets faster and
faster, which forms a funnel cloud that

DID YOU
TEXAS
continues to swirl.
WARM DRY AIR
Eventually, the funnel cloud may touch the
ground, and that’s when it becomes a
tornado. It will be much smaller than a KNOW?
Tornadoes are actually
WARM MOIST AIR
hurricane – usually between 20 and 100
invisible! It’s because they
metres (65 to 330 feet) wide. Yet tornadoes have such high wind speeds
have far faster wind speeds. and fast rotation that they
A hurricane can blow at speeds of up to 300 create a visible funnel of
kilometres per hour (190 miles per hour), but condensed water.

tornado wind speeds can be as fast as 480

km/h (300 mph). Hurricanes can also keep
going for about three weeks, yet a tornado CREATING A
usually blows over in less than an hour. Even FUNNEL
so, that’s enough time to cause total chaos Columns of rotating air
and destruction. Moreover, tornadoes form so move upwards. This
draws in more warm
fast that people often only realise they’re on air from the ground.
their way less than an hour before they hit!
As they move, they pick up debris and throw
it about. We saw that in December 2021,
when tornadoes ripped through Kentucky,
Arkansas, Illinois, Missouri, Mississippi and
Tennessee in the United States. It left a trail of CONTACTING
destruction as it tore up trees, shrubs and THE GROUND FORMING A
homes. It also caused a warehouse to The funnel of air drops SUPERCELL
collapse, knocked a train from its tracks, and towards the ground, A Supercell
and when comes into thunderstorm forms
wiped out businesses and places of worship. contact with Earth, a when cold dry polar air
Dozens of people were killed. tornado is created. at high altitude meets
warm, moist tropical
air at low altitude.

WATCH THIS!
ALL ABOUT TORNADOES

Scan with your

phone or tablet
https://bit.ly/3r5ZenQ

38
 TORNADOES

TORNADO
ALLEY WHAT DEBRIS HAS THIS
More tornadoes occur in the United
TORNADO PICKED UP?
States and Canada than anywhere Tornadoes have scooped up many weird and wonderful
else on Earth. Most of these happen things. Write down what you can see swirling around here.
in a region called Tornado Alley that
stretches from the state of South
Dakota to Texas. It is so prone
because dry cold air that moves south
from Canada meets warm moist air
moving north from the Gulf of Mexico.

ANSWERS: Chicken, cake, photographs, engine, corn stalks, car, donkey.

SAFFIR-SIMPSON
HURRICANE WIND SCALE
Tornadoes and hurricanes are categorised depending on how strong the winds are. They use different scales.

SAFFIR-SIMPSON HURRICANE WIND SCALE

Catagory Wind Speed (km/h) Wind Speed (mph) Damage
1 119-153 km/h 74-95mph Minimal
2 154-177 km/h 96-110mph Moderate
3 178-208 km/h 111-129mph Extensive
4 209-251 km/h 130-156mph Extreme
5 More than 252km/h More than 156mph Catastrophic

ENHANCED FUJITA SCALE FOR TORNADOES

Catagory Wind Speed (km/h) Wind Speed (mph) Damage
EF0 105-137 km/h 65-68 mph Gale
EF1 138-177 km/h 86-110 mph Moderate
EF2 178-217 km/h 111-135 mph Significant
EF3 218-266 km/h 136-165 mph Severe
EF4 267-322 km/h 166-200 mph Devastating
© Getty Images

EF5 More than 322 km/h More than 200 mph Incredible

39
WHEN WEATHER
TURNS BAD
S evere weather is dangerous. As well as
being very scary, it can put lives at risk and
cause massive damage to buildings. It can
leave people without a home, cause them to
go hungry, and badly affect animal habitats.
If a tornado or a hurricane is going to rip
through a city, we can usually only stand by
and let it happen. We can’t prevent lightning
from killing people or snow from sliding down a
mountain. These are powerful forces of nature.
Storms are not the only problem either. Most
of us love a sunny day, but if it is too hot for too
long, and there is no rainfall, it can cause a
drought. At this stage, lakes, ponds and rivers
begin to dry up, crops and other plants start to
die, and it can even lead to forest fires.
Thankfully, people can limit the amount of
damage caused. Early warning systems can be
developed to evacuate people in areas that are
about to be hit. We can also construct buildings
capable of withstanding heavy winds.
Flood defences ensure that overflowing
rivers, streams and lakes don’t send water into
the streets and into homes or businesses. But
as we can see on these pages, the worst can
still happen.

HURRICANE
HARVEY
TEXAS AND LOUISIANA,
UNITED STATES

Over $125 billion of

damage was caused,
mainly due to flooding,
after this Category 4
hurricane hit.

HURRICANE
KATRINA DUST STORM
SOUTHEASTERN AUSTRALIA
UNITED STATES
A huge plume of
A Category 5 Atlantic red-orange coloured
hurricane caused dust spread across
widespread destruction dozens of towns and
in 2005, killing more cities in New South
than 1,800 people. Wales and Queensland
in 2009.
40
 WHEN WEATHER TURNS BAD
PREPARE
FOR FLOODS SURVIVE A
Meteorologists are forecasting heavy rain and there
Which of these items would you NOT need to
are flood warnings. How can you help to protect
stay safe during a tornado?
TORNADO!
your home? Fill in the blanks in the following Which of these items would you NOT need to
sentences using the words provided! stay safe during a tornado?

1 Appliances should be __________ to

prevent electrical shocks when the power
is restored.

2 Valuable items should be taken ________ A B

to protect them from flood waters.
Batteries Bottled water
3 A water __________ can be used to
detect if water is rising too high.

4 Place __________ bags at the bottom of

outside doors to absorb moisture.
C D
5 Place __________ over any air bricks to
prevent water from pouring through. Non-perishable Hat
food

COVERS SENSOR SAND

DID YOU
UPSTAIRS UNPLUGGED KNOW?
Mudslides are caused by a large
volume of water eroding soil on
E
ANSWER: 1. Unplugged. 2. Upstairs. 3. Sensor. 4. Sand. 5. Covers.
a steep slope. They can reach radio
speeds of up to 50 miles per
LOTS OF SNOW hour, and become powerful
ANSWER: D.
enough to carry cars, trees
UNITED KINGDOM
.

and even entire

© USAID Africa Bureau, Public domain

In 1947, the UK froze, and buildings.

snow fell every day for 55
TERRIBLE FLOODING
days. Thousands of people
were left stranded, and many CHINA
livestock died. When the snow Torrential rain caused the
thawed, homes were flooded. Yangtze River to flood in 1998,
leaving 15 million people
homeless and 3,704 dead.

LONG
DROUGHT
© Getty Images, Wikimedia Commons

ETHIOPIA

In the mid-1980s,
drought caused
harvests to fail over
and over again. Food
shortages caused more
than a million deaths. © Chensiyuan, CC BY-SA 4.0

41
AMAZING WEATHER
W hen it rains really heavily, you may have heard
someone say, “It’s raining cats and dogs”. It isn’t, of
course. No one knows where the phrase came from, but
at no point in history have two of our favourite pets fallen
from the sky. But that’s not to say other animals haven’t!
In 1947, fish began to rain down on Marksville,
Louisiana, US, following a storm. In 2005, thousands
of frogs fell on Odzaci in Serbia. Other creatures
that have fallen to the ground include spiders,
worms and tadpoles, and it once even
rained raw meat. That was in the US state
of Kentucky in 1876, and experts suggest
it may have been dropped by vultures.
Yet, weather is sometimes to blame.
The frogs and fish are likely to have
been sucked up from their habitats by
something called a tornadic waterspout
– columns of rotating wind that either
form over water or move from land to
water. Reaching 160 km/h (100 mph),
their low-pressure central vortex acts like
a vacuum cleaner. The waterspouts would
have picked up the animals before
reaching land. There, they would lose energy
and release their passengers.
But it’s just one example of how weird
weather can be. Let’s take a look at some other
amazing phenomena that have left meteorologists
(and the general public) watching with wonder.

GIANT
HAILSTONES AN ALIEN
The largest hailstone INVASION
ever recorded fell on
Vivian, South Dakota, Although they look like
USA in 2010. It had a alien spaceships, these
diameter of eight are actually lenticular
inches and a clouds, which usually
circumference of form downwind of
18.62 inches. mountains or hills.
© Mick Petroff, CC BY-SA 3.0

ROLLING
CLOUDS
These rare roll clouds
look like huge tubes of
fluff. Called Morning
Glory, they can be up to
1,000 kilometres (620
miles) long!

42
 AMAZING WEATHER

HAIL SUDOKU
Fill in the grid using the letter H, A, I and L. You cannot have
more than one letter in each row or column. The letters in
AMAZING
each of the four small grids must also be different.
WEATHER
i l TERMS
You’ve heard weather forecasters talk about

a h i
snow, wind and rain. But have you heard of
these odd descriptions?

THUNDERSNOW

l h
A rare weather phenomenon that mixes
thunder with snow.

POLAR VORTEX
A rotating low pressure system near
the polar regions.

PINEAPPLE EXPRESS
A strong river of moist air in the tropical Pacific.

WATCH THIS! WEATHER BOMB

FIVE WEIRD WEATHER PHENOMENA
A sudden drop in pressure inside an area of
Scan with your low pressure.

phone or tablet
https://bit.ly/3F9MG3C

THE NORTHERN
LIGHTS
The Northern Lights are
a swirl of vivid colours
created when charged
particles from the Sun
collide with atoms in
our planet’s
atmosphere.
© Slate99slate, CC BY-SA 3.0

WHITE
RAINBOWS
Although they are SNOW
similar to rainbows,
fogbows are stark
DOUGHNUTS
white. They are caused
When a clump of snow
by the small droplets
starts to roll, it gets
inside fog, mist or
bigger and bigger.
a cloud.
Sometimes, the middle
© Getty Images

collapses and blows

away, making them
look like tyres or
delicious doughnuts.

43
WEATHER AND
THE SEASONS
T here are four seasons in each year: spring,
summer, autumn and winter. But not every
part of the world has all four. The seasons
SPRING SUMMER
KINDS OF WEATHER KINDS OF WEATHER
depend on two things. First, the way Earth tilts at Warm Hot
Calm Sunny
an angle of 23.5 degrees as its spins on its axis. Dry Dry
Second, how our planet makes its journey around
the Sun.
Different parts of Earth receive more direct
sunlight during the day depending on the
time of the year. Between June and July,
for example, countries above the equator
(the northern hemisphere) are tilted
towards the Sun. They receive more
direct sunlight, and this warm period is
called summer.
Those below the equator (the
southern hemisphere) are tilted
away from the Sun during those
months. They receive less direct
sunlight, and this cooler period is
called winter.
But in December, January and
February, the opposite happens. The
southern hemisphere tilts towards the
Sun and enjoys more daylight. The
northern hemisphere tilts away and
experiences less daylight.
Spring and autumn are the in-between
seasons. Spring follows winter, and sees a WINTER AUTUMN
gradual warming of Earth as it gains more KINDS OF WEATHER KINDS OF WEATHER
Freezing temperatures Mild
direct sunlight. Autumn follows summer, and sees Snow Windy
a gradual cooling. Ice Wet
But you don’t get spring and autumn
everywhere! There’s a band that stretches across
the middle of Earth called the Tropics. Anyone
living there experiences one or two seasons.
Some parts of the Tropics are always hot, for
example. Other parts have a dry season and a
wet season.
DID YOU
KNOW?
The Arctic and Antarctic polar regions only have
summer and winter. In these freezing tips of
Earth, there is lots of sunlight during summer, but Some parts of the world
barely any during winter. Again, this is because experience very wet weather
during summer. Monsoons
Earth is tilting towards and away from the Sun.
bring heavy rain when winds
The different seasons also bring about very bring cooler, more humid air
different weather, as we are about to see. from above the oceans to
the land.

44
 WEATHER AND THE SEASONS

COLOUR ME IN! ODD ONE OUT!

Spring is referred to as the season of new beginning. Plants
begin to sprout, flowers blossom, and the weather becomes
Many animals don’t like cold, dark winters. They can make
warmer. These bunnies are having a great time, so why not
bring some colour to their lives? finding food much more difficult, so to survive, they go into
a long, deep sleep called hibernation. By reducing their
body’s metabolism, they are able to save energy. One of
these animals does not hibernate. Do you know which one?

A B
Bear Hedgehog

C D
Tortoise Hamster

HERE COMES
THE SUN! E F
Dog Snails
There are two days of the year when the Sun is directly
above the equator: 20 or 21 March, and 22 or 23 ANSWERS: E
September. Each day marks a seasonal transition, and
the amount of daytime is almost equal to the amount
of nighttime.
There are also two days that mark the longest and
shortest amounts of daylight: 21 June and 21
December. These are called a solstice. The northern
hemisphere has its summer solstice on 21 June, when it
enjoys the longest period of daylight all year.
In the United Kingdom, druids, pagan and others
celebrate the summer solstice by visiting a prehistoric
monument called Stonehenge to see the Sun rise
© Getty Images

behind one of the stones (the Heel Stone). They also

visit the site for the Winter Solstice on 21 December.

45
PRECIPITATION
PUZZLES
COLOUR ME IN!

DID YOU KNOW?

The earliest image The largest
ever found of a
snowperson was
in The Book of
snowperson ever
built was in Bethel,
Maine in 2008. It
FUN IN
Hours – published was 37.21 metres
THE SNOW!
in
ma
do

in 1380 CE (122.1 feet tall)

ic
bl

pu
s,
on
© Wikimedia Comm

In 2015, 1,406 people in Akabira, Japan, spent an hour building Snowball fights are great fun, but can the girl
2,036 snowpeople – the most ever in that time! target her friend? Follow the four paths to work
out which snowball will be successful.

46
 PRECIPITATION PUZZLES

JOIN THE DOTS!

What do you think this girl is doing? Join the dots to find out.

5
6
4

2
9

10
1 14
11 13 15
16
12 17
52 18
51 19
50

20
48 21
49 23
22
47 24
44
45 46
30 25
28
31 29 27 26

42
41 40
43
39 38
33 32

37

34
36 35

SPOT THE DIFFERENCE

Waterproof umbrellas
became popular in China
in the 11th century BCE,
but the foldable versions
were only invented in
1928 CE. They are used to
stop you from getting
drenched in the rain – but
researchers have shown
that black umbrellas can
block more than 90 per
cent of the Sun’s
ultraviolet light as well!
Here we see a boy with
his umbrella. Can you
spot five differences
© Getty Images

between the pictures?

47
 CREATE A RAINBOW!
This phrase is a great way of remembering the colours of the
rainbow! The first letter of each words stands for
Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo and Violet.

Richard Of York Gave Battle In Vain

But can you create a better phrase? Why not
have a think and write some ideas down here!

ODD ONE OUT! SNOW SUDOKU

Which of these weather phenomena is the odd one out? Fill in the grid using the letter S, N, O and W. You cannot
have more than one letter in each row or column. The
letters in each of the four small grids must also be different.

A B
N o s
s o
Rain Lightning

C D
N w
Snow Hail
ANSWER: B. The rest are types of precipitation o
48
 PRECIPITATION PUZZLES

COLOUR THE RAINBOW

When it rains and the Sun peeks out from behind the clouds, you are likely to see
a rainbow. Rainbows form when light from the Sun is scattered by spherical
raindrops. It does this because of a process called refraction. The lightwave
slows down, bends as it hits the back of the raindrop and exits in a different
direction towards our eyes.
To see the rainbow, the Sun has to be low in the sky and behind you
with the rain (or fog) in front. But why are there different colours? That’s
because the light is made up of different wavelengths, some bending
more than others. Red is the longest wavelength of visible light, and
bends the least. The shortest is violet, which bends the most. Grab
your colouring pencils or crayons, and bring this rainbow to life!

Since the 17th century, people have

spoken of there being a pot of gold at

FIND THE POT the end of every rainbow. It’s a myth,

© Getty Images

of course, originating in Ireland, but

the fun story says that leprechauns

OF GOLD! guard the treasure. Navigate this

maze to find the gold and try to avoid
the leprechauns along the way!
49
 CLOUDS & TORNADOES!
37 38 39 40 41
Flooding is caused by
a hurricane’s
rainband. FINISH
DOWN!

36 35 34 33 32 31
The atmosphere is dry
and cool, so there’s lots
of dry snow. It’s fantastic
weather for skiing, so
take to the ski lifts!
UP!

25 26 27 28 29 30
You go out on a hot
You’re caught in the
day without any Sun
eye of a hurricane, so
cream on and now
it’s actually calm.
your skin is sore.
Throw again! DOWN!

24 23 22 21 20 19
It’s 1 June, and the A 300 miles (480
meteorological summer kilometres) per hour
begins in the Northern tornado uproots a tree,
Hemisphere. so you can’t go to school.
UP! DOWN!

13 14 15 The Sun’s16 17 18
rays have turned the
surface of a pond
into water vapour,
which rises upwards
to form clouds.
UP!

12 11 10 9 8
There’s lightning,
7
but you’re more than
12 miles (19 kilometres)
away, and don’t hear
the thunder. You
wait around.
MISS A TURN

2 You’re at 3 4 5 6
the top of the Eiffel

START Tower in Paris. On a

hot day, it expands
by up to 17cm
(7 inches).
UP!

50
 PRECIPITATION PUZZLES

WEATHER CHAT!
Weather is hot topic of conversation, and British people
are among those who talk about it the most. According
to research, they chat about the weather three times a
day for an average of two minutes and 46 seconds each
time. That’s six months in total over an average lifetime!
Rearrange the letters in the words below to see what
these two people are talking about.

OWH SEOD A
DSMERTONHTUR
CCHTA HSIF?

HTIW A NGHTLINGI
DOR! ANSWER: How does a thunderstorm catch fish? With a lightning rod!

TRUE OR FALSE?
Earth is the only planet in the Solar
WHAT HAVE 5
System that has rainbows YOU LEARNED?
TRUE OR FALSE Now that you have come to the end of the chapter, try
and write down 10 facts that you have learned over the
past 32 pages!
Raindrops become more flat at the
bottom as they fall
TRUE OR FALSE

Rain always make the ground wet

TRUE OR FALSE

Weather vanes indicate wind speed

TRUE OR FALSE

It takes just over eight minutes for light

from the Sun to reach Earth
TRUE OR FALSE
© Getty Images

Fog cannot produce precipitation

TRUE OR FALSE
ANSWER: True, true, false, false, true, false.
51
WHEN THE WEATHER
IS USEFUL
W eather can be put to great use. The Sun,
for example, provides plants with the light
energy they need to photosynthesise, creating
glucose that keeps them alive. Rain helps seeds
germinate and grow, while wind can blow pollen
from one plant to another, enabling fertilisation
and the production of seeds.
Wind can also be harnessed to make food
(look at how it can rotate the blades of a windmill
to grind grain). There is even evidence that wind
turbines on farms are helping crops to grow by
mixing the air and getting more carbon dioxide
to crops. Wind is great for a host of sports, from
sailing to windsurfing. It also enables you to fly
a kite.
One of the best uses for weather, however, is
its ability to provide us with power. As you will
see over the next few pages, our growing
demand for electricity is being met by using
weather as a source of energy. Wind and the
Sun are used the most, but experts are also
wondering if rain can be a good source too.
Maybe one day you’ll be spending a rainy day
indoors playing videogames, knowing the
console is being powered by precipitation!

52
 WHEN THE WEATHER IS USEFUL

FIND THE HIDDEN

TREASURE
Pirates seeking treasure would use huge ships. They were powered by
the wind hitting their sails, but they’d also have to watch out for stormy
weather. Help these pirates find a safe path and grab the gold.

COULD WE
HARNESS
ELECTRICITY FR?OM
LIGHTNING
In the film Back To The Future, Doc Brown
uses lightning to power his DeLorean time
machine, sending Marty McFly back to the year
1985. But can we really harvest lightning
energy? Scientists say it is possible, but not
practical. Not only would it be expensive,
it’s hard to predict where lightning will
© Getty Images

strike – and it’s just as difficult to

store the energy!

53
RENEWABLE ENERGY
E nergy can be created by burning fossil fuels such as coal,
gas and oil. Unfortunately, the world will run out of each
one of them at some point in the future, and they are also very TRUE OR FALSE?
dirty. When fossil fuels are burned, large amounts of carbon
dioxide are released into the air. Carbon monoxide and Renewable energy from weather
nitrogen oxide are also generated. Wouldn’t it be better to find does not create pollution
cleaner energy that doesn’t pollute Earth? Step forward,
renewable energy! TRUE OR FALSE
Renewable energy generally comes from sources that can be
replaced by nature, and different types of weather are among
Fossil fuels will never run out
them. You could generate power from the Sun, for example,
and not worry that you’re emptying a pot of sunshine. The TRUE OR FALSE
same goes for other types of renewable energy, such as wind
and water. Just because you’ve used some wind, it doesn’t Solar power could become the main
mean there’s less wind in the world. It’s constantly renewing. energy source in 30 years time
The same cannot be said of coal, gas and oil. They are made
from dead plants and animals that decomposed over millions TRUE OR FALSE
of years. The more they are used, the less there will be, and it
will take hundreds of lifetimes to build the levels back up again. It’s not possible to predict
So why is the world still using non-renewable sources? Quite
tidal flows
simply because they are still cheaper and more efficient at
the moment. TRUE OR FALSE
One of the main problems with relying on weather for energy
is that it changes so much. There may be strong winds one day
Weather is consistent
and a gentle breeze the next. The Sun could be out today, but
there could be thick clouds covering the sky tomorrow. This TRUE OR FALSE
would affect how much energy is being created: either too
much or too little. Energy suppliers would have to store energy ANSWERS: True, false, true, false, false.
on the good days to cope with the bad days. Long-range
weather forecasts would also need to improve.
BIOMASS POWER
Biomass can be wood
and plants, or animals
and agricultural waste.
They’re only renewable if
crops are replanted, and
they can give off carbon
dioxide when burned.

WIND POWER
If an area gets a lot of
wind, it can be used to
turn the blades of wind
turbines. Some wind
farms can power
whole towns.

SOLAR POWER HYDROELECTRIC

Sunlight can be POWER
converted into
electricity using solar Water that flows
panels, and it can also downwards (such as in
be used to heat homes waterfall) creates
and water. kinetic energy that can
turn the blades of a
turbine to generate
electricity.
54
 RENEWABLE ENERGY

DID YOU POWER THE

KNOW?
GEOTHERMAL
POWER
The International Space Station
uses renewable energy. Solar
panels are fitted to the
HOMES
Heat in the
sub-surface of Earth American modules. Find out Each of these homes is using a different
can be accessed more about solar energy on form of renewable energy, but the
by digging wells, pages 58 and 59! cables have become tangled. Can you
but it is reliant on
volcanic activity. work out which renewable energy
source is powering each house?

TIDAL POWER
Energy from the
movement of tides and
oceans can be converted
© Getty Images

into electric power. Tides

are predictable
and constant.

55
WIND POWER
H ave you ever seen a wind turbine? They
look like tall poles with three blades on
the top, and you usually find them on the side
of hills, at the coast, or even in the sea –
anywhere, in fact, that allows them to catch a
lot of wind. Since wind power is one of the
world’s fastest-growing sources of renewable
energy, more and more of these turbines are
being built. If you see a lot of them together
then they are part of what is called a wind
farm. They can generate a lot of electricity.
Wind turbines that are on land are said to be
onshore, and those that are in the sea are
offshore, but they work in the same way.
When wind hits the turbines, kinetic energy
turns the blades around a rotor. This motion
turns a shaft inside the turbine, and that spins
a generator, creating electrical energy. There
doesn’t need to be a lot of wind for this to
happen – the electricity can be generated at
wind speeds of 15 km/h (10 mph). But the faster
CREATE SOME WIND FARMS!
Wind farms work best if they are located where strong and reliable wind blows. Ideally, this would be at the top of a
rounded hill, in a wide open space, in coastal areas, or in gaps in mountains. Trees and buildings can interrupt wind flow.
Where would you place wind turbines in this area?
56
DID YOU
KNOW?
The world’s largest wind
the speed, the more power that the turbines
can produce.
So how much electricity can you get? On
turbine blade is 107 metres
(350 feet) long – around
twice the usual size. That
average, each onshore wind turbine can power makes it roughly the length
more than 1,500 homes. Those that are located of a football pitch!
offshore can power more than twice that! They
are also quite efficient. Wind turbines don’t use
all of the wind that blows on them, but they
can turn as much as half of the wind’s energy
into electricity. Sometimes you see wind
turbines that are not turning, but most of them
are producing power 80 per cent of the time.
What is important is how clean they are. The
turbines do not create any pollution, and
because the wind will blow forever, nobody is
worried about fuel running out. There are some
negatives: you may speak to people who do
not like how they look. They can also be noisy
and harm birds. But lots more of them are
going to be built in the future. See how many
you can spot when you next go on a journey!
 WIND POWER

WIND POWER
BY THE
NUMBERS!
8,000
Wind turbines are made using
more than 8,000 components

GENERATING 2.75 MW
The average capacity of a wind
ELECTRICITY
turbine is 2.75 megawatts
The rotor is connected
to a shaft that turns a
gearbox. This spins
a generator to
produce power. 200 BCE
People have been using wind energy
since 200 BCE

2,600 TONS
One megawatt of wind energy offsets
2,600 tons of carbon dioxide
TURNING
THE ROTOR
The kinetic energy is
transformed into
WHEN THE
WIND BLOWS!
1940
The first wind turbine was built in
mechanical energy. As wind hits a
The blades are the 1940s
turbine, the blades
attached to a rotor, begin to rotate. Their
which also turns. propeller-like design
captures as much
kinetic energy
as possible.
TRANSFORMING
THE POWER
A transformer converts
the electricity into a
voltage that can be
used to power homes,
businesses and more.

DID YOU
KNOW?
The average height of an onshore wind
turbine has increased over the years.
In 1990, they were about 27 metres
(89 feet) high, but those built today
are about 90 metres (295 feet) tall.
The taller they are, the more energy
they generate, because winds
increase at higher
© Getty Images

altitudes.

57
SOLAR POWER
T he Sun produces a huge amount of
energy through a process called nuclear
fusion. Taking place in its centre – in what is
called the Sun’s core – it involves hydrogen
atoms constantly smashing into one
another, creating helium.
The process also generates a large
amount of heat and light, which makes it all
the way to Earth. By capturing this energy, it
is possible to generate electricity, and also
heat water and buildings. In fact, that is
exactly what we mean by solar power.
If you glance up at the roofs of houses,
you may see some blue solar cells. These
are made from layers of silicon covered with
glass. When rays of sunshine hit the cells,
energy is absorbed. Electrons are attracted
to the surface, and the movement creates a
current that causes a flow of electricity.
Now, there are certain times when these
solar cells won’t work – the night-time hours
when you are safely tucked up in bed. That’s
because the cells require at least a low level
of sunlight. But the good news is that the
energy captured during the day can be
stored in batteries, and the electricity can
keep your lights turned on.
Even so, solar power is not as efficient
as wind power because only 20 per cent
of sunlight is converted into electricity by
the solar cells that people use at home.
Solar power also works better in countries
that have a lot of sunny weather, but it
will still generate electricity on cloudy
days by capturing different parts of
the sunlight spectrum. It would
generate more if the Sun’s rays had a
clearer path.

COLLIDING
WITH CELLS
When the photons hit
the cells that make
up a solar panel, they
cause electrons to
become separated
from their atoms. This
forces the electrons
to flow around the
solar cell.
USING THE POWER
The inverter converts
the DC electricity to
Alternating Current
(AC) electricity – the
power that can be
used in our homes.

58
 SOLAR POWER
1 2
DID YOU
KNOW?
One hour of direct sunlight would
provide enough energy for the 3
whole world for one year! Sadly,
we can’t collect it all! But if we
covered 4 per cent of the world’s 4
deserts in solar cells, that would
provide enough electricity
for us all.

RECEIVING LIGHT
Energy from the Sun 5
travels to Earth as
packets of light
particles and heat.
These small packets
of energy are
called photons.

CROSSWORD
Across
CREATING 1. The time when solar cells would
ELECTRICITY
not work
The movement of 4. The particles that are attracted to
electrons generates
Direct Current (DC) the surface when photons hit a cell
electricity. This flows
to what is called an
5. The item used to store electricity
inverter, which is generated by solar power
connected to the
solar panel.
Down
2. The device used to convert DC
electricity to AC
3. The name given to the Sun’s energy
5. The colour of solar panels you find
on homes

USING SOLAR
POWER TO
HEAT WATER
The Sun can also be used to heat water. In this
case, a panel would be placed on the roof, and
a water pipe would be located underneath it.
When cold water is pumped to the solar
panel, the Sun warms it up. The heated water
then travels to a storage tank, where it can
be sent to taps for washing and other
things. These definitely work better
© Getty Images

when the weather is hot.

ANSWERS: 1. NIGHT. 2. INVERTER. 3. SOLAR. 4. ELECTRONS. 5(A). BATTERY. 5(D). BLUE.

59
WAVE AND
TIDAL POWER
W ave and tidal power generate
electricity from the movement of
ocean water. Experts say these two forms
of renewable energy will become an
CREATING MOVEMENT
important source of electricity in the future.
Waves cause the system
However, they cost a lot of money to set to move back and forth.
up, which is why they are not as common The motion pump oil
through motors that
as wind or solar power just yet. turn electrical
There are differences between the two. generators. This
produces electricity.
Wave energy is generated when wind
blows across the surface of the ocean. The
wind transfers its energy to the sea, and
waves are created. The stronger the wind,
the bigger the waves. By capturing the
power of these waves, it is possible to use
their kinetic energy to power turbines.
These convert the energy into electricity. SEA SNAKE
Experts are still working out the best Waves with currents of
ways of capturing this power. First of all, up to five metres per
second (11 miles per
the energy can be harnessed out at sea or hour) make Pentland
close to the shore. Some methods involve Firth, Scotland, a great
place for tidal power.
placing a device on the surface of the Free-floating cylinders
help to drive the
water to gain power when waves move up energy.
and down. Others use underwater devices
attached to a float: the waves make a
piston move up and down, and this pushes
air into a turbine. After the turbine turns,
an attached generator produces electricity. PROVIDING POWER
Tidal energy is not generated by wind. A cable carrying
electricity to nearby land
Instead, it is produced by the pull of gravity is capable of providing
from the rotation of Earth and the Moon’s energy to almost 4,000
homes – amazing!
orbit around our planet. Since low and high
tides follow well-known cycles, tidal power
can be predicted. We can work out when
power will be produced well in advance.

By placing turbines underwater, the ebb
and flow of the tides can be used to make
them turn to produce electricity. Reservoirs
can also be created to store water. During
high tides, water can be collected in the
reservoir. During low tides, a dam can
release some of the water through a
turbine. Tidal power can produce a lot of
energy – more than with wave power –
and it does not have to rely on the weather.
DID YOU
KNOW?
Tidal energy is the oldest forms
of renewable energy. Turbines
can be installed up to 240 feet
below water level – that’s
actually further than the
length of a Boeing 747
airplane!

60
 WAVE AND TIDAL POWER

DIRECTION
A
WAVE LENGTH
B HOW WAVES FORM
Waves are formed when wind blows over surface water. This
WAVE HEIGHT
creates friction and causes energy to be transferred from the
CALM SEA LEVEL wind to the sea. When the water is deep, the water is forced to
move in a circular motion. It also moves in the direction of the
wind. Some waves are stronger than others. A wave’s height
depends on the wind’s strength, how long the wind is blowing for
and the distance the wind travels across the water.

CREST TROUGH

SPOT THE
DIFFERENCE
MAKING Waves are also a lot of fun – especially if you love

WAVES! surfing them! Can you spot five differences between

these two pictures?

The largest recorded

wave caused by wind
was 32.3 metres (106
feet) high. It
happened during
typhoon Krosa on
6 October
2007. That’s
the height of
three school buses
piled on top of
each other!

© Getty Images, Alamy.

61
ENERGY POWER
PUZZLES
WRITE WORDS ON
A CALCULATOR
Calculators can be powered by solar cells made from
amorphous silicon. They first became available in the 1970s,
using liquid crystal displays to reduce the amount of power they
need. But they can do more than help you with your sums!
Turn a calculator upside down, and most of those numbers can
be used to write words. Different numbers look like letters as our
chart shows, so, for example, typing 07734 looks like hELL0
when you flip the calculator! How many words can you create?

NUMBER LETTER

O O
1 I
2 Z
3
4
E
H
SAVE THE BIRDS
5 S Wind turbines provide us with clean energy,
but there is a big disadvantage: the turning
6 G blades can harm wildlife, especially birds
and bats. Experts are looking at ways of
7 L making them less dangerous – perhaps by
fitting wind turbines with devices that make
8 B a noise that birds and bats don’t like,
forcing our flying friends to stay away. Can
you help this bird avoid the blades?

62
 ENERGY POWER PUZZLES

FIND THE WORDS!

The words below are associated with renewable energy. Can you find them?

X T I B Q H C A S F H A C L G V Z S N P F R B W X T W S K J
U L B A N H R H P U C R N Z I Y U F T S W B F W S T D Y Q Q
B G E E S Q N N V I C T I D A L D H U A Z F A T I E T U N G
U R C Q L H K J A J T M W P P J F G R H T U K C O P H H M Z
G R K E C E V M U J Q Q V Q O K R A B H F J H Q T E I E W R
M L F H I R C I U N G T P G N D D T I I E P K X U O F B J I
G C O L X J E T N D K H R K V P F E N Q Y V K B G A E X Y Z
Z B S L G Y Y S R S L Y Q F Y P B T E N Q L H H K M S O P A
N G S I C I M B N I C N Y O B M X B M A C X Q U S M X G R L
U V I Y A P B H V K C R F F D Z W D Y C Q Z Z D K U L G W A
L I L U G H W D S C C I S W E R R U D E M C P X C B C C M F
S L N E U Z R L B V A H T T B U S S S P B J X X O G S H J F
T U S N C E X T X T P R X Y W B N G A J M X Y M A N J H S M
W L S I B P D G I W P U B S X P C Q A K D W E B F G M R U W
P Y I T D Z I W S B D H O O T D L W U Q A A C K U D E V J M
Q Y Q R A I I M M I D Z Q Z N O I M M E J M L F F B J Q G E
T E Y E X I M T F E J Z Z J P I M F J N F W J U X F P J N T
L C T T Z C N Y W D N T J T A B A E Y J W C Q R S M K X P H
X Q V G R Y S A O S L E U S R U T C F D W S O L A R C U W A
A O E W O E C N R B U L T N W R E Y W N B P G W R C C G A N
G N I M B H U N U L M P K C P T U V I Z G N M A I A L Z I E
W O D K M T I X B P E I Y R A I U O R N R D N X K J F G W X
O Z B F I M T H Y M U D R V N G O N T G D M Q W P S B M L S
Q Z Z I U I S Y U G L T F H A T V V I P P E O X S H H J U S
L W I N D G L R O U N U C H S Y H J K O Q S E N E R G Y B H
R F D B U K N M R W X M P D V U L S T D R H X J W Y E X S M
R Q K I F V A I M T J U V M D F S P A X G P Q J Z G Z B N C
X O R R X L B U N Z M Y F U W D C I T Q B M A V Y V C B A P
H K F N Z F D H U T E B T Q D P F N Z Q I A F M C K N Q W M
V L R T A C R E L I A B L E V P D R F F F W Q E L V L Z A E

WIND TIDAL ENERGY FOSSIL ELECTRICITY METHANE

RELIABLE SOLAR SUSTAINABLE CLIMATE CARBON TURBINE

63
 FIND THREE
HIDDEN WORDS
These wires, leading from a solar panel,
have become tangled, but they have also
formed three words. Can you see them?

ANSWERS: Solar, wind, waves

RENEWABLE
OR NOT?
Some of these resources are renewable, which means they
can be topped up either naturally or through careful
management. Some of them are non-renewable, and will run
out eventually.
JOIN THE DOTS!
This girl is enjoying the benefits of the friction that
Can you work out which are which? takes place between wind and surface water. Join
the dots and see what she is doing.

SUNSHINE SAND TREES OIL

WIND GAS COAL TIDES

RENEWABLE NON-RENEWABLE

1
19 2
18 3
4 6 7
5 8
17

9
16

15 10

14 11

13 12

non-renewable; oil, gas, coal, sand

ANSWER: Renewable; sunshine, tides, trees, wind.
64
 ENERGY POWER PUZZLES

INVENT A CAR
Cars and vans powered by petrol and diesel will soon be banned from sale. When you
are older it is likely that your first car will be an electric vehicle (or EV for short). EVs could
be powered by solar panels. In fact, manufacturers are fitting them to some buses,
trailers, trucks and light vehicles. In 2023, Sono Motors is due to launch its Sion solar
electric vehicle. But what would your solar vehicle look like?

THE HYDROELECTRIC
WATER CYCLE
Some hydroelectric power plants use a dam
to store water in a reservoir. The water can
then be released so that it flows through a
turbine, making it spin. A generator converts
the mechanical energy into electricity.
Based on what you have learned so far
about how water rises and falls, can you
place the labels below into the right place on
the picture?

GENERATING POWER WATER FLOW

PRECIPITATION EVAPORATION
CONDENSATION SOLAR HEAT

65
 GENERATING
POWER
These solar panels are being used to power a single home.
Some of the excess energy is also being sent to the national
grid for other people to use. List the appliances that are
being powered in this house, and write down other items in
your home that use electricity.

FIND THE PERFECT

LOCATION!
In 1996, the world’s fastest surface wind speed at high altitude was recorded at Barrow
Island, Australia: a breathtaking 408 kilometres per hour (253 miles per hour).
But wind turbines have a top speed of 80 to 89 km/h (50 to 55 mph). If they spin faster
than that, the blades can become damaged.
Maybe it wouldn’t be a good idea to place a wind turbine at Barrow Island. But which
of these locations could have one?

STRONGEST RECORDED IDEAL FOR A WIND

LOCATION
WIND SPEED TURBINE?

Mt Washington,
371 km/h (231 mph)
New Hampshire, US

Cairngorm Summit,
278 km/h (173 mph)
Scotland, UK

Cabazon, California, US 48 km/h (30 mph)

Kegnæs, Denmark 148 km/h (92 mph)

ANSWERS: No, no, yes, no.

66
 ENERGY POWER PUZZLES

WORD
SEARCH
Find as many words as you can in:

RENEWABLE

POWERING A
PLAYSTATION
A domestic solar panel can produce as many as
400 watts every hour. How many watts would be
generated if it was sunny for 24 hours?

How long would this solar panel need to produce

WHAT HAVE 5
enough electricity to power a videogame console
that uses 100 watts every hour?
YOU LEARNED?
Why not read through the chapter again? Now, write down all
of the facts that you can remember. You have five minutes, so

DID YOU make sure you time yourself.

ANSWER: 9,600 watts; 15 minutes

KNOW?
The North Pole has 24
hours of sunlight
throughout the
summer.

COLOUR THESE
WIND TURBINES!
Wind turbines would rotate faster if they had two
blades, so have you ever wondered why they
have three? The main reason is a two-bladed
turbine would wobble. A third blade adds
© Getty Images

stability, but why stop there? Wouldn’t a fourth

blade be even more stable? Yes, but blades are
expensive, so manufacturers don’t add more.

67
CLIMATE AND
THE WEATHER
W hen we talk about weather, we are referring
to changes in the atmosphere that happen
minute-by-minute. We discuss if it’s sunny, windy,
cloudy, rainy or snowy on a certain day, for instance.
In other words, weather is about what’s happening
at a particular time and place in the short term.
Yet you may have heard people talking about
climate too. Climate is a long-term view of weather.
It describes how the atmosphere changes, on
average, over a lengthy period of time. We would
say, for example, that a desert’s climate is hot and
dry. By looking at years of information, we know
that it won’t rain that much.
When it does rain in a desert, that’s a change in
the weather. It’s a short-term event – in fact, in a
desert, less than 250 millimetres (10 inches) of rain
will fall each year. The climate does not change,
though. The climate will continue to be hot and dry
because that is how it is for most of the time over
many, many years, decades and even centuries.
But that does not mean climate cannot change; it
can. Climate change happens when temperatures
and weather patterns shift over a long period of
time. Sometimes this is a natural process, but
climate change can also happen because of things
humans do, such as burning fossil fuels.

WEATHER V CLIMATE
Some of these situations are affected by weather and some are affected
by climate. Can you work out which ones fit into each category?

A football match is postponed because of snow

WEATHER OR CLIMATE

It is 32 degrees Celsius outside today

WEATHER OR CLIMATE

You can expect rain in Manchester in November

WEATHER OR CLIMATE

There was snow all last week

WEATHER OR CLIMATE

It is usually hot and dry in Egypt

WEATHER OR CLIMATE

Humidity in rainforests is between 77% and 88%

WEATHER OR CLIMATE

ANSWERS: Weather, weather, climate, weather, climate, climate.

68

WARM THE DESERT!
DID YOU
KNOW?
Climatologists study weather
conditions that occur over a
long period of time. They use
computer models to predict
patterns and gather lots of
data over months, years
and centuries.
CLIMATE AND THE WEATHER
Hot deserts generally have less than 250
millimetres (10 inches) of rain in a year. The
hottest is the Sahara in northern Africa,
where temperatures can reach 47 degrees
Celsius (117 degrees Fahrenheit) in the
summer. Deserts become hot because
there is a lack of moisture. But wait –
where’s the Sun to warm the sand?
Can you find the missing piece?
1 2 3
4 5 6
7 8 9
© Getty Images
69
WHAT IS CLIMATE?
L et’s look more closely at what climate is. As
you have learned, climate describes average
weather conditions over a long period of time. But
TEMPERATURES
climate is not the same in every part of the world.
There are different climate regions around the Earth.
Meteorologists observe what the weather tends to
Each one experiences certain types of weather events.
be like in a region at a certain time of the year,
Use the key to see what types of climate exist and find
and describe what usually happens. the areas they relate to on the map. These zones are
There are reasons why climate is different based on the Köppen system.
depending on where you are, though. The main
reason is that some parts of Earth receive different Polar (Coldest temperatures on Earth)
amounts of radiation from the Sun than other Mountains (Cold)
parts. This affects how hot and dry or cold and
Temperate (No temperature extremes)
wet the climate is going to be over a large area.
Subtropical (Hot and humid)
Areas around the equator experience a hot,
humid and wet climate. This part of Earth receives Tropical (Hot and humid)
more energy from the Sun because of the way our Arid (Hot and dry)
planet tilts. It also faces the Sun throughout the Equatorial (Very hot)
year, so it is constantly being warmed. Yet the hot
air above the equator rises and creates an area of
low pressure. Since it can contain a high amount
of water vapour, a lot of rain will fall.
As you move away from the equator,
temperatures begin to vary and, by the time you
reach the North and South Poles, you will
experience cold and dry climates. These areas
do not get direct sunlight, again because of the
way Earth tilts. It means climate can explain
variations in temperature, precipitation and
humidity, as well as wind, vegetation and plant
life. Different types of animals can thrive in
particular climates, too.
As well as the Sun, oceans, winds and the type
of land have an effect on climate too. Oceans
absorb radiation from the Sun and release heat,
but the climate is usually milder on land near the
coast. Wind carries moisture along with hot or
cold air, while hills or mountains can force winds

DID YOU
to rise, forcing the air to cool. Areas that are very
cloudy tend to be cooler during the day because
they block heat from the Sun. They are warmer at
night since the clouds trap warm air. KNOW?
Global temperatures have
increased by roughly one per
cent in the last 100 years!
Increasing temperatures
are causing Earth’s ice to
melt.

70
 WHAT IS CLIMATE?

ANIMAL MAGIC
Some animals thrive in certain climates. Monkeys, for
example, can be found in tropical regions, and they have
adapted to the environment, finding lots of delicious fruits,
nuts, plants and insects to eat in rainforests while using trees
to swing away from predators. Can you find seven differences
between these images?

WHAT ARE
MICROCLIMATES?
Does rain tend to fall more in a local park than anywhere
WATCH THIS! else in your area? Does one part of your city have a
WHAT IS CLIMATE? consistently high temperature? It may have a microclimate
– a small area where the weather patterns are different to
Scan with your the surrounding region. Water, soil and the shape of the
phone or tablet
https://bit.ly/3fb7WeW
area can alter the climate. Buildings can also create a
microclimate by changing the direction and speed of wind,
© Getty Images

for example.

71
WHAT’S HAPPENING
TO THE CLIMATE?
L ike weather, climate changes, but it does
so very slowly. Since Earth formed 4.5
billion years ago, the planet has gone THERE’S MORE
through many changes, including five ice EXTREME
ages, which lasted for hundreds of millions
WEATHER
of years. Rising sea temperatures
are increasing the
Earth’s surface temperature has been strength of tropical ICE SHEETS ARE
going up and down for the past million years. storms. The last seven
years have also been SHRINKING
There have been cold periods followed by the warmest on record!
Arctic temperatures are
warm periods every 100,000 years or rising three times more
so, caused by changes in Earth’s quickly than in other
parts of the world.
orbit around the Sun. This is totally Glaciers and sea ice is
melting at both poles.
natural, and it affects how much
solar energy the planet receives.
Climate can change when a volcano THE GLOBAL
erupts as well, because it releases
TEMPERATURE
IS RISING
carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.
Too much carbon dioxide is bad. Increased carbon
dioxide emissions are
Earth’s temperature depends on two mainly to blame for an
average global
things: how much energy we get from temperature rise over
the Sun, and how much of that energy is the past 200 years.
bounced back into space. Carbon dioxide
absorbs and traps heat. By reducing the
amount of energy that leaves Earth, the
planet as a whole will become warmer.
Since the 1800s, which is the time of the
Industrial Revolution, the levels of carbon
dioxide in the atmosphere have risen by more
than 50 per cent. The average temperature
on Earth has also risen by 1.2 degrees Celsius
(2.12 degrees Fahrenheit) since the 19th
century. It has been largely caused by human
OCEAN WATERS SEA LEVELS
activity, such as burning fossil fuels or ARE MORE ACIDIC ARE RISING
chopping down forests.
The oceans also contain Sea levels have risen by
As a result, climate is changing much faster more carbon dioxide, more than 20
than it has ever done before. Weather is also which is affecting the centimetres (8 inches)
growth of corals. since 1880, and that is
becoming more extreme and unpredictable mainly due to ice sheets
turning to liquid.
in many parts of the world. Coasting flooding is
Many countries are trying to solve the more likely.
problem. Their leaders have agreed to try
and keep global warming to 1.5 degrees
Celsius, and have pledged to reduce the
amount of carbon dioxide, methane and
other harmful gases being released into the
atmosphere by the year 2030. Sadly, there is
a long way to go.

72
 WHAT’S HAPPENING TO THE CLIMATE?
HOW
MANY? WHO IS THE
99.9 per cent of climate
scientists believe humans are
causing global warming.
There is little doubt we need
to reduce the amount of
greenhouse gases emitted
WORST POLLUTER?
into the atmosphere!
CARBON DIOXIDE
COUNTRY SHARE
EMISSIONS

China 10,432,751,400 29.18%

CHINA
United States 5,011,686,600 14.02% REST OF
THE WORLD

India 2,533,638,100 7.09%

U
ST NITE
AT D
Russia 1,661,899,300 4.65% ES

AN
RUSSIA
INDIA
JAP
Japan 1,239,592,060 3.47%

IDENTIFY THE ANIMALS

Alaska is warming twice as fast as the rest of the United States. Climate change can alter the habitat
for wildlife such as polar bears, moose, dall sheep, musk oxen and Alaskan Malamute. Polar bears are
already suffering from the Arctic’s loss of sea ice. Can you identify these animals by their shadows?

A D E

B C © Getty Images

73
HOW CAN I HELP
PLANET EARTH?
N ow that you have seen some of the
effects of climate change, you may
be wondering what you can do about it.
Governments across the world are
asking the same question. They have
discussed how their countries can
reduce the use of fossil fuels such as
coal and gas. They have also looked at
how we can all cut waste.
You may be seeing a difference
already. When you used to go
shopping, did you carry your items in a
thin plastic bag given to you by the
store? Today, you are more likely to take
a ‘bag for life’ on your shopping trips.
This has cut the number of plastic bags
being used by as much as 95 per cent.
You may also notice that more cars on
the road are being powered by
electricity instead of petrol or diesel.
There will be different bins outside your
home so that most of the things you
throw away can be recycled.
But what else can you do? Over the
next six pages, we are going to look at
other ways you can help fight against
climate chaos and protect our
wonderful planet. You’ll discover how
you can encourage more nature to visit
your garden, understand how things
grow, and learn more about how what
happens on Earth affects what happens
in the atmosphere.

74
HOW CAN I HELP EARTH?

© Getty Images

75
HELPING THE BIRDS
AND THE BEES
CREATE SAFE AND INVITING SPACES FOR VISITING
WILDLIFE AFFECTED BY CHANGING WEATHER PATTERNS

1
ENCOURAGE BEES
AND BUTTERFLIES 2
Bees are very important insects. Although they may
sting you sometimes, they will only do so if they are
scared. Most of the time they are busy pollinating
fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds and wild plants (and
making honey, of course!). This helps farmers produce
lots of delicious food. Bees also ensure that our
countryside is filled with wonderful flowers, thus
making sure that there is plenty for animals to eat.
Butterflies are also pollinators, and like bees, you will
often see them travelling from flower to flower. But
both bees and butterflies are in trouble. There are
3
fewer of them around compared to the 1970s. Experts
say climate change is partly to blame for this, and the
more temperatures continue to rise, the less we will
see of these wonderful creatures. 4
In this project, we are going to look at how you can
turn a patch of land into a garden that bees and
butterflies will love to visit.

WHAT YOU’LL NEED

• A plot of land (or container)
• Soil and compost
• A trowel for digging
• Bee-friendly flowers
• Water

INSTRUCTIONS 5
1. FIND SOME SPACE: Look for an area that catches
the Sun’s rays. You could use some outdoor space at
home or school, or even a small container.
2. CHOOSE SOME FLOWERS: It’s important to grow
pollinator-friendly flowers. Consider planting
bluebells, lavender, rosemary, foxglove, chives,
crocus, rock cress, sea holly or common sunflowers.
3. DIG THE SOIL: Flowers grow best in healthy
soil, so loosen it up, and maybe add some compost.
Ensure there is space between the flowers
you plant. If you’re planting seeds, follow the
packet’s instructions.
4. DON’T FORGET TO WATER: Make sure you give
your flowers at least 2.5 centimetres (one inch) of
water each week – more during hot weather. The
best time to do this is in the morning before school.
5. DON’T USE PESTICIDES: Pesticides are poison, and
you should not be touching them. They are also very
harmful to insects. It is believed that pesticides are
WHAT DID YOU LEARN?
another major cause of low numbers of pollinators. The more flowers you have in your garden, the
6. ENJOY WATCHING THE BEES: Your garden should more bees and butterflies you are likely to see. But
soon be attracting bees and butterflies. Why not why are other insects also being attracted to your
count how many you see? Take care of your visitors garden? Don’t worry: wasps, moths, beetles and
by providing a shallow bowl of water for them to flies are also pollinators. You may even see more
drink from. birds, too!

3
76
 HELPING THE BIRDS AND THE BEES

BUILD AN INSECT HOTEL 1

There are more than 5.5 million species of insects, and
many of them are being affected by climate change.
Scientists believe that changes in temperature and
precipitation (water released from clouds in the form of
rain, snow, hail and sleet) are contributing to the
decline of more than 40 per cent of insect species. A
third of creepy crawlies are also endangered.
It’s a big problem, because the world needs insects.
As well as pollinating crops, insects are eaten by lots of
different animals. Without them, birds, bats, fish, frogs
and many more would become very hungry. Insects
are also brilliant cleaners. A group of them are called
decomposers, and they love to eat dead things such as
fallen leaves, wood, animals, and even poop! By
building an insect hotel, you can encourage lots of
4
bugs to visit and stay.

WHAT YOU’LL NEED

Look around your garden, and you will see lots of
material you can use, including dry leaves, wood, bark,
pinecones, moss and more. Ask if anyone has an old
wooden pallet, bricks, logs, roofing tiles or pots.

INSTRUCTIONS
1. BUILD ON SOLID GROUND: Your insect hotel is
going to be spread over a few floors, and you don’t
want it to topple over. Find some level ground, and
perhaps lay down a plank of wood or a pallet to create
a foundation.
2. CREATE A FRAME: You need to create a set of
shelves. Either keep piling pallets on top of one other,
MAKE A BIRD FEEDER
or place two bricks at either end of the plank of wood, Birds are adaptable, but many Weather can also have an effect
add another plank, then more bricks and so on. have been forced to change the on bird migration patterns. Rain
3. ADD EXTRA MATERIAL: Grab lots of natural material way they behave in response to and strong winds can prevent birds
such as loose bark, dry leaves, logs, twigs, pine cones extreme weather events such as from setting off on their journeys,
and hollow stems, and stuff them in the gaps. You are droughts, heavy rain and and any disruption can cause big
creating dry, warm spaces for insects. heatwaves. Some species are problems. Our flying friends time
badly affected by extreme their movements so that they don’t
4. ADD SOME PROTECTION: To avoid rain hitting the weather. If there is too much rain, end up in an area with little to no
top of your shelter and causing water to drip down
a bird could have less time to find food, so why not show birds how
through your insect hotel, create a roof. A sloping tiled
food, because there are fewer much you love them by making
roof would aid drainage, but a flat one is perfectly fine.
insects around. Water may also sure they have something to eat
5. OPEN THE HOTEL: Now, wait for the guests to arrive. flood their nests. when they visit you?
As well as insects, you may also find that hedgehogs
are attracted to your hotel. You could even add a
hedgehog box filled with a straw or small, dead,
dry leaves.
WHAT YOU’LL NEED
• A coconut
WHAT DID YOU LEARN?
• Some seeds
• Lard
Insects are attracted to small, safe, dry holes, and if • String
you provide outdoor shelter then bugs will soon find
it. Having an insect hotel protects bugs by keeping
them safe from predators, which gives them INSTRUCTIONS
greater opportunities to breed, but they can also
provide food for local wildlife. 1. CUT IT IN HALF: Ask an adult to cut the
coconut in half for you. Knives are sharp, so
please don’t do this yourself.
2. MELT THE LARD: Clean the coconut shell
and ask an adult to melt lard in a pan,
5 which needs to be poured into the shell.
3. ADD THE SEEDS: Add the seeds as you
pour the lard. When done, allow the coconut
to cool for about an hour.
4. HANG THE COCONUT: Tie the string to the
coconut and find somewhere safe to hang it
in an area where predators won’t attack.

WHAT DID YOU LEARN?

Food shortages are becoming more common, so
© Getty Images

feeding birds really helps our feathered friends! It

will give them a much greater chance of survival,
especially in winter when birds need food that is
high in fat to give them more energy.

77
TURN YOUR
FINGERS GREEN
ONE OF THE BEST WAYS OF HELPING EARTH IS TO
UNDERSTAND HOW TREES AND PLANTS ACT AS ITS LUNGS
3
CREATE A SMALL 2
GREENHOUSE
You may have heard about the greenhouse effect – the
way in which heat from the Sun is trapped by gases
contained in our planet’s atmosphere. We rely on the
greenhouse effect to keep Earth warm. Without
greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide, methane and
nitrous oxides, heat from the Sun would escape and the
planet would be far colder.
Instead, Earth is kept at a cosy average temperature of
14 degrees Celsius (58 degrees Fahrenheit). But there is a
danger that the greenhouse effect can cause too much
heat to be trapped. When people burn fossil fuels such
as coal and oil, more carbon dioxide is released into the
air. This causes Earth to warm up. That is a bad thing.
An increase in greenhouse gases causes extreme
weather. It also contributes to greater levels of air
pollution and increases the risk of wildfires, making it a
major contributor to climate change. With this activity,
you are going to see how extra warmth has an effect.
We’re going to create our own greenhouse using plastic
cups to speed up the growth of some seeds.

WHAT YOU’LL NEED

• Large, clear plastic cups
• Potting soil
• A pin
• Green bean seeds

INSTRUCTIONS
1. MAKE SOME HOLES: Use a pin to punch
some holes in the bottom of two of your plastic
cups so that water will be able to drain out.
2. PLANT SOME SEEDS: Now, fill the cups with
potting soil and press about four green bean seeds into
it. These seeds germinate in about 7 to 10 days.
3. ADD SOME WATER: Water the seeds, being careful not
to add too much. You don’t want to drown them or get
water everywhere.
4. COVER ONE CUP: Place an empty plastic cup over one
of the soil-filled cups. Sit both of the filled cups on a
window sill in sunlight.

WHAT DID YOU LEARN? PLASTIC ISN’T

The air inside the covered cup will be at a
higher temperature than the air outside of it.
This happens because heat radiation from the
Sun warms up the soil. When that heat tries to
FANTASTIC!
Although we are using plastic cups
escape, much of it is trapped by the covering for this activity, it is important to be
cup. As a result, the seeds should grow more
quickly than in the uncovered cup. aware that creating plastic items
adds to greenhouse gas
emissions. If possible, try to use
plastic cups that someone is
throwing away. Be sure
to wash them first.

78

PLANT A TREE
There are two ways humans can reduce carbon dioxide
in the atmosphere. The first is to stop burning fossil fuels.
The second is to find natural ways of absorbing it.
Planting trees is very effective in tackling the climate
crisis because, as they grow, they absorb and store
carbon dioxide emissions.
Millions of trees are being planted every year, but
forests are still being cut down. Losing trees in the
Amazon rainforests is particularly worrying. The fewer
trees there are, the more likely the climate near the
topics will become drier and warmer, and this could
harm plants and animals. Planting a tree of your own
shows that you want to make a difference.
WHAT YOU’LL NEED
• A tree
•
•
A stake and tie
Garden fork
• Garden spade
INSTRUCTIONS
1. DIG A HOLE: Ask an adult if they will buy you a tree for
your birthday or another special event, then ask them if
they will help you to dig a hole in the ground.
2. WATER THE TREE: While the hole is being dug, place
the roots of the tree in a bucket of water to dampen
them. After the hole is dug, pull gently on the roots so
that they are exposed.
3. INSERT INTO THE HOLE: Place the tree into the hole so
that the top of the ball of roots is level with the surface
of the soil. Put some of the soil back, and make sure the
tree is straight.
4. SUPPORT THE TREE: A stake is a stick that can be
tied to the tree to lend it extra support, preventing it
from blowing over in the wind. Ensure that the tree is
well watered.
WHAT DID YOU LEARN?
Your tree should grow for many years to come. Some live
for hundreds or even thousands of years. By planting a
tree, you are making a difference to the environment,
helping wildlife and improving health. Trees reduce and
remove air pollutants and lower temperatures.
1 INSTRUCTIONS
2 4
TURN YOUR FINGERS GREEN
2
3
CREATE YOUR OWN
COMPOST USING
WORMS
About 1.3 billion tonnes of food is lost or wasted each
year. A lot of organic matter, such as leaves, are also
thrown away or left to rot. But did you know that you can
turn scraps of food and anything that naturally
decomposes into something called compost? This is a
fertiliser packed with nutrients that can be spread on soil
to help gardens grow.
Compost helps to reduce greenhouse gasses because
it means the waste is not being sent to your local rubbish
dump, where it can often end up being buried in the
ground. Landfills give off a gas that is mainly methane
and carbon dioxide. This is produced when bacteria
breaks down organic waste. By producing compost using
worms, you will help to reduce emissions.
WHAT YOU’LL NEED
• Plastic storage container with lid
• Shredded paper
• Food scraps
• Worms
• Insect mesh
1. PUNCH SOME HOLES: Ask an adult
to drill some holes in your plastic
container. Cover the holes with a
fine mesh. You don’t want the
worms to wriggle out.
2. ADD THE PAPER: Shred and
damp some unwanted used
paper, and use it to line the
bottom of the box. Make it about
7 centimetres (3 inches) deep.
3. INCLUDE THE WORMS: Worms can
be purchased in fishing stores and
garden centres. Add some to the box.
4. THROW IN SOME WASTE: Now, you can
start adding kitchen waste. Don’t include too
much at first, and leave it for a week.
WHAT DID YOU LEARN?
© Getty Images
You can add vegetables, cereal, tea bags, bread, fruit
scraps and coffee grounds to your worm compost box.
When the worms eat the scraps, it will pass through their
body and come out of the other side as natural compost.
What goes in is full of nutrients, so what exits is just as
good! It can then be used to grow stuff.
79
MONITORING THE
EFFECTS OF POLLUTION
HOW IS CLIMATE CHANGE AFFECTING THE ENVIRONMENT?
FIND OUT BY TRYING THESE EXPERIMENTS

LEARN HOW ICE MELTS

Here is a question for you: what do you think will melt
first, an ice cube that is placed in water, or one that is
placed on a dry surface? By trying this experiment, you
will eventually know the answer. But why is it important
to know? Well, climate change is having a big effect on
the polar ice caps.
About 13 per cent of Arctic sea ice is being lost every
10 years. Rising temperatures are causing the ice to
melt, and this is reducing the amount of space available
to the wildlife that lives on it. With less ice, there is also a
greater chance of heatwaves. This is due to there being
less white snow and ice to reflect heat back from the
ground into the atmosphere.

WHAT YOU’LL NEED

• An ice cube tray
• Bowl of water

INSTRUCTIONS
1. MAKE SOME CUBES: Grab an ice cube tray that allows
you to produce cubes of the same size and shape, and
fill it with water.
2. FILL UP A BOWL: Fill a bowl with water, and leave it
for an hour or so. This will ensure that it reaches the
same temperature as the air.
3. PLACE THE CUBES: Find a place that is also at room
temperature. Put one ice cube on this plate and place
another in the bowl of water.

WHAT DID YOU LEARN?

After waiting a while, you should see which ice cube
melted first. Spoiler: it was the one in the water, wasn’t
it? Although the ice cube in the bowl floated, and was
still exposed to the air, the part that was in the water
melted more quickly. Why? Because water transfers
heat more efficiently than air.

1
2 3
1

80

CHECK YOUR AREA’S
AIR QUALITY
Certain weather conditions, such as heatwaves, can
lead to poor air quality. When the air is warm, for
instance, it can stagnate, trapping pollutants in the
lower atmosphere. This can cause health problems such
as asthma and irritation to people’s eyes. It can also be
damaging to the environment.
Strong winds or heavy rain can help to improve air
quality by moving pollutants away faster. But wind can
carry pollution from one area to another. This can spell
trouble for people who live near industrial areas.
Thankfully, in most western countries, air quality has
improved because there is less smoke and sulphur
dioxide. Even so, there are still problems with pollution
from cars causing the formation of ozone, while fuel
burning and dust can cause issues too. Why not try this
experiment to see how polluted your area is?
WHAT YOU’LL NEED
• Two pieces of paper
• Petroleum jelly
INSTRUCTIONS
1. SMEAR SOME JELLY: Take a couple of pieces of
paper, and smear a good amount of petroleum jelly on
each one.
2. POSITION EACH ONE: Now, place one piece of paper
outside – using a stone to stop it blowing away – and
another one inside.
3. GIVE IT A WEEK: Wait seven days or so, and collect
the piece of paper from outside. Take a good look at
each one.
WHAT DID YOU LEARN?
Pollutants will have stuck to the petroleum jelly.
Depending on where you placed the pieces of paper,
you will likely see more on the one that was outside.
Pollutants do exist inside though, and if you placed that
piece in your kitchen, you may see more than if it was in
your bedroom. Why not repeat the experiment with
more pieces of paper in different locations?
MONITORING THE EFFECTS OF POLLUTION
PRODUCE YOUR
OWN ACID RAIN
Acid rain sounds bad, doesn’t it? It describes any
precipitation that contains a high level of sulphuric acid
and nitric acid, both are which end up in the air when
humans burn coal, gas and other chemicals.
Sadly, acid rain can cause ecological damage to lakes
and streams. It can also affect fish, damage soil, and
harm plants and trees. Thankfully, drops of acid rain
falling on your body is not going to cause you any harm,
but the less there is, the better. Want to see the
problems yourself?
WHAT YOU’LL NEED
• Three plants
• A bottle of vinegar
• Water
• Measuring jug
• Three cups
INSTRUCTIONS
1. LINE UP THE PLANTS: Take three plants that an adult
doesn’t mind being experimented on!
2. MAKE SOME ACID RAIN: Pour four tablespoons (60ml)
of vinegar into one of the cups, and top the rest of it up
with water.
3. NOW MAKE SOME MORE: Pour 16 tablespoons
(240ml) into another cup, and top that up with water
as well.
4. FILL A JAR WITH WATER: Finally, fill the third cup
with water. Now, you have two jars of acid rain –
one extreme!
5. WATER THE PLANTS: Place the plants side by side.
Water the first plant using water from the first jar (don’t
use it all!)
6. CONTINUE WATERING: Water the second plant with
the second jar and the third plant with the third jar. Do
this every couple of days.
WHAT DID YOU LEARN?
You will see a difference in the health of each plant,
depending on which of the three jars of liquid you have
used to water them. Look at the differences to the stems
© Getty Images
and the leaves. This will show you the impact acid has.
1
2
81
WEATHER
EXPERIMENTS AND
ACTIVITIES TO TRY
AT HOME!
S o far, you have explored different
types of weather, checked out some
extreme weather events, and explored
how weather can provide energy. You
have also seen how you can help tackle
climate chaos. All of this means you will
have hopefully learned a lot about what
happens outside each day, and you are
fast on your way to becoming a
weather expert!
Now, it is time to get stuck into some
amazing activities and experiments that
will teach you even more about how
weather works. You are going to gain a
better understanding about the
atmosphere, learn how to make tools
that will help you to measure – and
even predict – what way the weather
will turn where you live. You are also
going to be able to recreate some
weather events in your own home. Ever
fancied seeing a tornado close up? Turn
the page, and you’ll find out just how
you can do that.
One thing you will discover as you
take a look at these hands-on projects
is that all of them make use of items
that many people will have around the
house. If you don’t have some of the
materials needed, most of them are
generally inexpensive. There should be
no barriers to learning more about
weather, and we hope what we have in
store over these next 14 pages will blow
you away.

82
WEATHER EXPERIMENTS AND ACTIVITIES TO TRY AT HOME!

© Getty Images

83
WIND AND RAIN
THESE WEATHER EVENTS ARE ALMOST GUARANTEED TO KEEP
YOU INDOORS, BUT THIS DOESN’T MEAN YOU CAN’T HAVE FUN!

TORNADO IN
A BOTTLE
We looked at tornadoes on pages 38 and 39, but did you
know that it’s possible to recreate these extreme rotating
columns of air in your home? The good news is that it
won’t be anywhere near as destructive as a real tornado
(so you don’t need to worry that all of your things are
going to blow away!), but the effect still looks amazing.
What’s more, you don’t need any special equipment to
replicate it.
Once you have completed the experiment once, you
could go back and try to create it again using
different bottles. What would happen if you altered
the amount of water you used, for example, or
choose to use an even bigger bottle? Let’s find out.

WHAT YOU’LL NEED

• Two two-litre soft drink bottles
• Duct tape
• Water
• Food colouring

INSTRUCTIONS
1. FILL A BOTTLE: Fill one of your two bottles three
quarters full with water, and add a little bit of food
colouring so you can see the water more clearly.
2. DRILL A HOLE: Ask an adult to make a small hole
in one of the caps, and screw it on top of the water
bottle. Discard the other cap.
3. ATTACH THE BOTTLES: Place the mouth of the
empty bottle on top of the cap of the full one, and
secure it tightly with lots of sticky tape.
4. FLIP THE BOTTLES: Turn the bottles upside down.
You will find that the water does not immediately
pour down into the empty bottle.
5. GIVE IT A SWIRL: Spin the bottles, and the water
will start to make some room for the air in the
bottom bottle to rise. And there is your tornado!

WHAT DID YOU LEARN?

Swirling the bottles creates a vortex, a type of
motion that causes fluid to flow around an axis line.
It pulls the water downwards from a space of low
pressure to space that is higher in pressure, and the
air that rises is spinning. This shows the twisting
4
way in which tornadoes move.

3
1 DID YOU
KNOW?
Weather radar was discovered
by accident! The military
had been using radar to
track enemy aircraft, but
found it also detected
precipitation.

84
 WIND AND RAIN
3
CHECK OUT THE
DOPPLER EFFECT 4
A Doppler radar is one of the tools used by
meteorologists to predict the weather. It allows them to
find precipitation and work out how fast an object is
moving, and the direction in which it is travelling. It’s an
important tool, because in cases of extreme weather it
can save lives and prevent excessive damage to
property. It is always good to be warned if trouble is on
the way, after all!
Doppler radars work by sending pulses of
electromagnetic energy into the atmosphere. When
the pulses come into contact with an object, radiation
bounces back to the radar. The strength of the
returning pulse allows meteorologists to work out how
heavy the precipitation is. The time it takes for the
pulse to return tells them how far away a thunderstorm
may be.

WHAT YOU’LL NEED WATCH THIS!

• Two two-litre soft drink bottles SIREN SOUNDS
• Duct tape
• Water Scan with you r
• Food colouring
phone or tablet
https://bit.ly/3FHQppK
INSTRUCTIONS
1. FIND A SIREN NOISE: Go to
https://bit.ly/3FHQppK on a mobile
phone, and hand it to a friend.
MAKE A RAIN GAUGE
2. PLAY THE SOUND: Ask your friend to walk 50 According to the Guinness Book of World Records, the
metres from you, and play the video with the sound wettest town on Earth is Mawsynram in north-east
turned high. India, where the annual rainfall is 11,871mm. But how
3. LISTEN OUT FOR CHANGES: Now, ask you friend to does that compare to where you live? The best way to
walk towards you with the sound still playing before check how much rain is falling in your city, town or
walking past you. village is to create a rain gauge, which you should
check at the same time every day. These are also used
WHAT DID YOU LEARN? by meteorologists and hydrologists to measure the
amount of liquid precipitation. Why not share your
Did you hear the changes? When the source of a sound results with your friends, and encourage them to make
moves towards you, it becomes higher in pitch – the their own rain gauge? Does it rain more heavily in
wavelengths in front of the source are bunching different areas of your city?
together. Once it passes, it becomes lower in pitch
because the wavelengths after it are more spaced out.
This is a demonstration of the Doppler effect. WHAT YOU’LL NEED
• Plastic bottle
• Ruler
1 • Pen

2 INSTRUCTIONS
1. MAKE SOME CUTS: Ask an adult to help you cut a
plastic bottle about two-thirds of the way up.
2. ADD WATER: Pour a small amount of water into the
bottle, and use a pen to mark the position of the liquid.
3. DRAW THE MEASUREMENTS: Now, use the ruler to
help you draw 1cm measurements up the side of the
bottle with your pen.
4. CREATE A FUNNEL: Remove the lid from the top part
of the bottom, turn it upside down, and place it inside
3 the bottom part.
5. CATCH THE RAIN: You are now ready to place the
bottle outside in a wide open space, ready to catch
the rain.

WHAT DID YOU LEARN?

By checking your rain gauge every couple of days, you
can keep track of how much precipitation there is in your
area. Create a chart with the date and time, and note
how much water there is in the bottle. If you subtract the
current volume from the previous volume, you can work
© Getty Images

out the amount of rainfall in each period.

85
HAVE FUN IN 5

THE SNOW
WHEN WINTRY WEATHER STRIKES, YOU COULD MAKE A SNOWMAN,
GO SLEDGING, OR TRY ONE OF THESE COOL EXPERIMENTS INSTEAD

1
MEASURE THE 2
WATER IN SNOW
If 12 inches of snow falls on your playground, what will
happen when it all melts? Will you have to pull on your
wellies and wade through 12 inches of water? Will you
even have to hire a boat? To discover how we may
need to prepare for this potential wave of water, let’s
try a simple experiment. We’re going to gather up
some snow, and test to see how much water is actually
in there. You may have to wait a little while for the
snow to melt, but the results will definitely be worth it!

WHAT YOU’LL NEED

• Glass jar
• Ruler
• Glass marker
• Snow

INSTRUCTIONS
1. LET IT SNOW!: Once it has snowed for a bit, pull on
your gloves, hat, scarf and coat, and take your
jar outside.
2. GRAB SOME SNOW: Take some handfuls of snow,
and quickly fill the jar to the brim. Mark exactly where
the snow goes up to.
3. MEASURE THE LEVEL: Use the ruler to measure how
far up the jar the snow has reached, and write the
number on a piece of paper.
4. HEAD BACK INDOORS: Get yourself warm again
while you wait for the snow in the jar to melt. Why not
read some more of this book?
5. CHECK THE WATER LEVEL: Back again? Cool! Now,
mark the water level, and use your ruler to measure
the height.

WHAT DID YOU LEARN?

Spoiler alert: there is far less water in the jar than there
was snow! Where’s it all gone? Meteorologists will tell
you that 30 centimetres (12 inches) of snow generally
equals 2.5 centimetres (one inch) of rain. This is due to
fallen snowflakes having a lot of air between them.
Different types of snow will contain different amounts of
water, though. Maybe try the experiment again with
dry, powdery snow, or more solid snow, and see if you
can spot the difference.

WATCH THIS!
WHAT IS A BLIZZARD?

Scan with your

phone or tablet
https://bit.ly/3q9WMNV

86
 HAVE FUN IN THE SNOW

THE DEFLATING
1 2 BALLOON
In this experiment, you are going to see how cold
weather affects molecules in the air. It’s also quite a
fun party trick, because what you are about to see
almost feels like magic. In truth, it’s not. It’s actually a
process that follows Charles’s Law. This describes how
gases will expand when they are heated, and contract
when they are cooled.

WHAT YOU’LL NEED

• A balloon

INSTRUCTIONS
1. BLOW IT UP: Blow up the balloon either using your
mouth or helium. Both will work.
2. GO OUTSIDE: Now, go outside in cold weather, and
see what happens to the balloon!
3. COME BACK IN: Go back indoors, and you’ll see that
the process reverses. How cool is that?

CAPTURE A WHAT DID YOU LEARN?

SNOWFLAKE When you head outside, the balloon deflates. It

does so more quickly if it is really cold. When you
come back inside, it starts to inflate again. This is
Every snowflake is different. Although they always form because the molecules get closer together in cold
a six-sided shape, because of the way oxygen and temperatures, so the balloon loses volume. The
hydrogen molecules connect when water freezes, no molecules spread out in warmer temperatures, so the
two are ever the same. Snowflakes are not white either volume increases. The balloon contains the same
– they are translucent. When light passes through a number of molecules, though!
snowflake, it’s diffused by the many sides of the ice
crystals, reflecting back as white. This is why we see
them in that colour.
In this experiment, you are going to take a closer
look at individual snowflakes. How much detail you see 1
in them will depend on how much humidity there is in
the air. If the air around a snowflake is very cold
(between -20 and 25 degrees Celsius), then there will
be more complicated patterns. These are called
dendrite snowflakes. If humidity is low, snowflakes
appear more simple and flat. What will you see?

WHAT YOU’LL NEED

• Some black card
• Magnifying glass 2
INSTRUCTIONS
1. MAKE SURE THE CARD IS COLD: If the card is too
warm, snowflakes will land, but melt straight away.
Take the card outside in a sheltered area for 30
minutes so that it becomes cold.
2. START COLLECTING SOME SNOW: Hold the card
straight with your arms stretched out to catch some
snowflakes, then carefully take it to back to your
sheltered area.
3. EXAMINE THE DIFFERENT SNOWFLAKES: Use your
magnifying glass to take a close look at the
snowflakes, or zoom in on them using the camera of a 3
mobile phone, and see if you can take a photo.
© Getty Images

WHAT DID YOU LEARN?

If the shapes are very intricate, there will be a lot of
humidity in the air. But you should still see beautiful
patterns, even if they are not very detailed. If your
mobile phone is not able to take a photo, try to
remember what each one looked like, and draw the
shape on a piece of paper.

87
GET THE MEASURE
OF THINGS
THE JOB OF A METEOROLOGIST IS TO TAKE
MEASUREMENTS THAT CAN HELP THEM TO 1
MAKE MORE ACCURATE FORECASTS

MAKE YOUR OWN

BAROMETER
A barometer is an instrument that measures air
pressure, enabling you to forecast what type of weather is
on the way. It works by detecting the weight of the
atmosphere – the layer of air (made up of a large amount
of gas) that surrounds Earth. If the pressure drops then
cloudy and rainy weather is more likely, because it means
the air is rising and cooling, allowing water vapour to
condense. If the pressure rises, the Sun is more likely to 2
appear, because clouds are less likely to form.
You don’t need to spend a fortune to own a barometer.
Although you can buy them in the shops, you can also
make one yourself using simple household items. Once
you have an idea of what high and low pressure means,
you will also better understand weather forecasts on
television, radio and online.

WHAT YOU’LL NEED

•
•
Glass jar
Balloon (or cling film)
•
•
Piece of card
Mounting putty
3
• Rubber band • Pen
• Glue or sticky tape • Paper clip

INSTRUCTIONS
1. SNIP THE BALLOON: Snip the end off a balloon and
stretch the main part over a glass jar (you could also use
strong cling film). Secure it with a rubber band.
2. ATTACH A STRAW: Take your straw and glue or sticky
tape about a quarter of its length to the top of the
balloon. Three quarters of it will overhang.
3. MAKE A POINTER: You want your barometer to be
precise, so unravel a paper clip and stick one end to the
inside of the straw so that some of it pokes out.
4. GRAB THE CARD: Use mounting putty to stick your
card to a wall, then place the jar on a table facing the
card so that the end of the paperclip in the straw is a
millimetre away.
5. MARK THE CARD: Use a pen to draw a line at the
exact height at which the paperclip is almost touching
the card. This is the current air pressure.
6
6. CONTINUE OBSERVING: Go back to your barometer in
about an hour, and see if the end of the paperclip is
above or below the line you have created.

WHAT DID YOU LEARN?

Whenever the paperclip rises above the line, it tells you
that the air pressure has increased – gases are pushing
on the centre of the balloon and lifting the straw. When
the paperclip is below the line, air pressure has
decreased. This is due to pressure inside the jar being
greater than the air pressure outside, causing the balloon
to rise. Why not create a chart and list the air pressure at
different times of the day throughout the week?

88
 GET THE MEASURE OF THINGS
MAKE YOUR OWN 1
THERMOMETER
If you want to know how hot or cold it is then you will
need to use a thermometer. This tool measures the air
temperature, and it either gives you a reading in Fahrenheit
or Celsius (usually both). Fahrenheit and Celsius are different
temperature scales. Water freezes at 32 degrees Fahrenheit
and 0 degrees Celsius, and boils at 212 degrees Fahrenheit
and 100 degrees Celsius.
You can convert between the two using some maths. To
find out what a Celsius temperature is in Fahrenheit, for
example, multiply the number by 1.8 and add 32. If you
need to work out what Fahrenheit is in Celsius then you need
to subtract 32 from the number and divide by 1.8.
3
But how do thermometers work? Well, thermometers such
as the one you can make here rely on the ability of liquid to
expand and contract when it gets hotter and colder.
Thermometers tend to use mercury or an alcohol-based
liquid such as ethanol, because they are more sensitive to
temperature changes.

WHAT YOU’LL NEED

• Small plastic bottle • Glove
• Rubbing alcohol • Protective goggles
•
•
Food colouring
Clear straw
•
•
Modelling clay
Marker pen SAFETY
• Water

INSTRUCTIONS
FIRST!
Wear gloves and
1. FILL WITH WATER: Make sure your small protective goggles!
bottle is empty, and clean then pour 120ml of Never drink rubbing
tap water into it. alcohol!
2. POUR RUBBING ALCOHOL: Ask an adult to
help you pour 120ml of rubbing alcohol into the bottle.
3. ADD FOOD COLOURING: To allow you to see the liquid
more clearly, you can add a few drops of food colouring.
4. INSERT THE STRAW: Drop the straw into the bottle. It
should float, with the bottom of the bottle just in the liquid.
5. SEAL THE TOP: Stuff the modelling clay around the top of
the bottle. This will seal the bottle and keep the straw in
place. Air cannot get inside your thermometer.
6. CHECK THE LIQUID LEVEL: Look where the liquid has risen
to within the straw. This is the current room temperature.
Mark it on the bottle.
7. CHECK THE TEMPERATURE: If you have a shop-bought
thermometer, check the temperature of your room and write
the number next to the mark on your bottle.
8. MAKE SOME COMPARISONS: Keep the thermometer in the
same place and check it each day at the same time. If the
liquid rises, the room is warmer. If it falls, the room is cooler.
MAKE A WINDSOCK
Wind doesn’t always blow in the same direction, but
you can test which way the gusts are flowing and
get an idea of their speed by making a simple
windsock. Used by people in Japan many centuries
ago, windsocks are seen at airports to tell pilots
what way the wind is coming from. They are also
used around industrial plants in case chemicals
leak, and safety bosses need to know the direction
potentially harmful substances are blowing in.
This windsock is just for fun, though. You will be
able to expose it to the wind and, by looking at the
angle of the ribbons, see its relative speed. If you
have a compass, you can even work out the wind’s
exact direction.
WHAT YOU’LL NEED
• Empty milk bottle
with handle
• Ribbons
• Stapler

WHAT DID YOU LEARN?
You should now have a better understanding of how
liquid-based thermometers work. You will have also learned
that the temperature can constantly change. Try checking the
temperature at different times of the day to see when it tends
to get warmer and colder. Is it time to wear a jumper, or can
you pull on a t-shirt?
1 3
INSTRUCTIONS
1. CUT THE MILK BOTTLE: Ask an adult to cut the
milk bottle in two – about five centimetres (two
inches) from the bottom of the handle – and
unscrew the lid.
2. STAPLE THE RIBBONS: Use a stapler to secure the
top of the ribbons to the open, cut end of the milk
bottle (you can cut up an old carrier bag into strips if
you don’t have ribbons).
6 3. GO OUTSIDE: When it is windy, go outdoors and
use the handle to hold the milk bottle in the air. The
ribbons will blow in the direction of the wind.

WHAT DID YOU LEARN?

This very simple experiment gives you an idea of
how useful wind socks are, and why we need to
work out the direction and intensity of wind. Are you
able to see any patterns with other types of weather
© Getty Images

including rain? Does the time of day affect the

direction of the wind?

89
GET YOUR HEAD DID YOU
IN THE CLOUDS
UNDERSTANDING HOW CLOUDS FORM AND HOW THEY
KNOW?
In China, clouds are
considered to be very lucky.
They’re so lucky, in fact, that
you’ll see a lot of these
LOOK CAN HELP YOU TO PREDICT CHANGES IN THE WEATHER fluffy objects in a lot of
Chinese art!

CREATE YOUR
OWN CLOUDS
You will have seen from pages 24 and 25 that clouds
form when air warms and rises. As water vapour
meets particles in colder layers of the atmosphere, it
starts to condense. This invisible gas changes into liquid
water droplets, which are visible as fluffy whiteness.
But clouds don’t only form in the sky. With a few
household items and water in two different forms, you
can create clouds in the comfort of your own home. It
works using exactly the same principle as the clouds you
see outside. We’re just going to use hairspray to take the
place of the pollen and dust particles in our atmosphere.

WHAT YOU’LL NEED

• A large glass jar with metal lid
• A cup of hot water
• Ice cubes
• Hair spray

INSTRUCTIONS
1. ADD THE WATER: Pour a cup of hot water into the jar.
Ask an adult to help you so that you don’t spill any on
your hand.
2. PREPARE THE ICE CUBES: Place some ice cubes on
top of the jar’s lid. You may want to flip the lid upside
down first so that the lip prevents the cubes from
falling off.
3. GRAB THE SPRAY: Spray a small amount of hairspray
into the jar. Now, pop the ice cube-covered lid on top
of the jar.
WATCH THIS!
4. WATCH THE CLOUDS: A cloud will start to form. Once MAKE A CLOUD IN A JAR!
it has built up, you could remove the lid and allow the
cloud to leave the jar!
Scan with your
WHAT DID YOU LEARN? phon e or tablet
This experiment shows the physical changes that take
place to form clouds. First, the hot liquid water turns into
https://bit.ly/3Gd30BV
4
a gas, which rises. When the vapour reaches the top of
the jar, it meets cold air created by the ice cubes, forcing 2
it to cool. The gas then condenses (changes from a gas
to liquid water droplets) on the surface of the hairspray
particles. This is just like when cooling water vapour in
the atmosphere condenses on air particles.

90
 GET YOUR HEAD IN THE CLOUDS
OBSERVE THE CLOUDS 2
On pages 24 and 25, we looked at different types of
clouds. In this activity you are going to see for yourself
4
what difference those clouds make to the weather. By
going outside and looking at the clouds, you may be
able to tell whether it is going to rain, get colder or
become sunnier. You may be able to work out if a storm
is brewing or if snow is on the way.
The best way to do this is by keeping a cloud journal.
This lets you write down what you see in the sky and
make a note of what happened next. If you continue to
do this then you should start to see a pattern. It is also a
good idea to write down the temperature at that
moment in time. For this, you will need a thermometer,
whether it’s one you have made yourself (see page 89),
or one that you buy from a shop.

WHAT YOU’LL NEED

•
•
What you’ll need
Paper 3
• Pen
• Thermometer
1
INSTRUCTIONS
1. CREATE A CHART: Copy the chart below on to a
piece of paper. You can make as many copies of this as
you wish.
2. GO OUTSIDE AND LOOK UP: When you observe the
clouds, fill in the chart. Start with the current date and
time, then draw the cloud. Do you know what type it is?
3. NOTE THE CURRENT WEATHER: Write down the
current temperature and the weather conditions.
4. WHAT HAPPENED NEXT?: Wait about 30 minutes, and
see if the weather changed. If it hasn’t, maybe wait a
little longer.

WHAT DID YOU LEARN?

Meteorologists observe clouds to help them predict the
weather. They analyse the data they gather to look for
patterns. The more they do this, the more accurate they
will be with their forecasts.
MAKE IT RAIN!
Rain falls when water droplets in the cloud become
heavy. Gravity pulls the droplets down to Earth, and
that’s when you need to pull up your hood or grab
an umbrella! In this simple demonstration, you are
going to see how this happens. The idea is that the
‘cloud’ will become denser as more coloured liquid is
added, and that it will diffuse with the water as it works
its way down.

DATE & TIME WHAT YOU’LL NEED

• A large glass jar
DRAW THE CLOUD AND NAME IT • Water
• Shaving foam
• Food colouring

INSTRUCTIONS
1. FILL WITH WATER: Pour water into the jar until it is
about three quarters of the way full.
2. SQUIRT THE CREAM: Spray the shaving cream on to
the water in the jar until it’s just skimming above the
top of the jar.
3. ADD THE COLOURING: Now, start placing drops of
food colouring on to the shaving cream. Wait until it
begins to soak in.
TEMPERATURE
WHAT DID YOU LEARN?
WHAT WAS THE WEATHER LIKE AT THE TIME?
The food colouring works its way through the shaving
cream and saturates it. When the heavier liquid gets to
the point where it cannot be held by the cream, it works
its way through the jar as ‘rain’ (the water in this
© Getty Images

WHAT WAS THE WEATHER LIKE LATER? instance is representing the atmosphere).

91
WHEN LIGHTNING
STRIKES....
GAIN A BETTER UNDERSTANDING OF HOW THUNDER AND
LIGHTNING WORKS WITH THESE THREE ACTIVITIES!

HOW FAR AWAY IS 1

LIGHTNING?
It is never a good idea to go outside during a lightning
storm. Lightning is very powerful, and if it strikes you then
you could be seriously hurt or worse. If you are already
outside, however, there is a way of working out how far
away the lightning is in miles. This will let you know if you
need to seek shelter. It is also a fun activity to try if you
are safely indoors.

WHAT YOU’LL NEED

• A lightning storm
• A stopwatch (optional)

INSTRUCTIONS
1. WAIT FOR THE FLASH: When you see a lightning flash,
start counting seconds. Although you could use a
stopwatch (perhaps use an app on a mobile phone), you
can also count in your head. For accuracy, use a word like
‘elephant’ after each number. For example, ‘one elephant,
two elephant, three elephant’, and so on.
2. LISTEN FOR THE BANG: Once you hear the rumble of
thunder, stop counting. You’re now ready to calculate the
distance to the lightning.
3. THE FLASH-TO-BANG THEORY: Every five seconds (S)
equals one mile (M). So, for example, if you counted (C) 15
seconds, then the lightning is three miles away. As an
equation this would be C divided by S equals M (or, in this
case, 15 divided by 5 equals 3).
4. MAKE A DECISION: If you are outside, and you have
counted 30 seconds or less, then the lightning is up to six
miles away. You must seek shelter if lightning is this close.
You don’t want it to strike you!

WHAT DID YOU LEARN?

Remember, thunder and lightning happen at the same
time. But the reason why you see the lightning before
you hear the thunder is because the speed of light is
much faster than the speed of sound (186,291 miles per
second compared to 1,088 feet per second).
3 4
2

92
 WHEN LIGHTNING STRIKES....
1 4
RECREATE THE
SOUND OF THUNDER
Lightning itself does not make a sound. But when
lightning strikes, a little channel is formed, and the air
around it heats very quickly to as much as 27,000
degrees Celsius (48,632 degrees Fahrenheit). This causes
air pressure to increase and the surrounding air to rapidly
expand. It results in a very loud sound wave. That is the
sound of thunder!

WHAT YOU’LL NEED

• A paper bag

INSTRUCTIONS
1. BREATHE INTO A BAG: Blow into a paper bag to fill it
with air, and then close the end of it so that the air cannot
escape. Keep it shut.
2. GIVE IT A WHACK: Now, wait for it… time your
moment… slam the bag between your hands as quickly
as you can, and listen out for the noise!

WHAT DID YOU LEARN?

CREATE YOUR OWN Warm pressurised air inside the bag pushes against
its sides. When that air is compressed by hitting the

LIGHTNING bag, it results in sufficient pressure to burst the sides

and speedily release the air. The air moves out as a
powerful soundwave, which you hear when it reaches
Okay, so this experiment isn’t going to send out a bolt of your ear. This is similar to thunder, because the expanded
lightning. That would be very, very frightening. What it is air caused by the lightning strike also moves out as
going to do instead is light up an energy-saving bulb in a a shockwave.
similar way to how clouds create lightning – that is, by
making use of static electricity and demonstrating that
opposites attract – in this case, negative and positive
2
charges. Quick tip, though: you need to use a fluorescent
bulb rather than an LED or one with a filament.
Fluorescent bulbs contain low-pressure gases, including
mercury vapour, which can change to plasma when
electricity moves through it.

WHAT YOU’LL NEED

• Balloon
• Fluorescent Lightbulb

INSTRUCTIONS
1. BLOW UP THE BALLOON: Prepare the experiment by
blowing up the balloon, and grab your fluorescent
lightbulb – a loose unconnected one, not one that is
screwed into a light fitting!
2. CLOSE THE CURTAINS: Make the room you are in as

© Getty Images
dark as you possibly can by closing the curtains and
turning off the lights.
3. RUB THE BALLOON: Rub the balloon over the hair
on your head, and keep doing this for about 10 seconds
or so. This creates an excess of negative charge, or
static electricity. SEEKING
SHELTER
4. LET THERE BE LIGHT: Hold the balloon two centimetres
(one inch) above the fluorescent lightbulb. Move the
balloon slightly.
If you are seeking shelter, avoid anything
WHAT DID YOU LEARN? metal – it can conduct electricity from the
When you rub the balloon on your head, a negative lightning and electrocute you. Do not
electrical charge develops from the extra electrons on shelter under trees, because they attract
your hair. Since a fluorescent lightbulb also contains lightning. Remember: there is also
electrical charges, the negatively charged balloon makes
a connection. Electrons pass to the lightbulb and cause something called the 30/30 rule. As
electrical charges to move around inside. When the well as sheltering if you count up to 30
charges come into contact with chemicals in the bulb, seconds, you should also wait 30
visible light is emitted. This connection between two minutes after the lightning flash
charges is what happens during a thunderstorm as
electrical charges jump around. to leave the shelter.

93
EVEN MORE COOL
ACTIVITIES TO TRY!
WATER CAN BE IN ONE OF THREE STATES: LIQUID, SOLID OR GAS.
UNDERSTAND THE WATER CYCLE AND EXPERIMENT WITH ICE
AND FROST

CREATE YOUR OWN

WATER CYCLE
You saw how Earth’s water cycle works on page 25
(why not take a look back to remind yourself?). In
short, water is heated by the Sun, which causes it to
rise as water vapour. Clouds are formed, and when
water droplets become too heavy, they fall as rain. On
page 24, we suggested that you take a bowl of water
and place it outside on a sunny day to see how much of
it escapes into the atmosphere. But let’s go one better.
Here, you are going to create your very own water cycle
inside a plastic bag!

WHAT YOU’LL NEED

• Plastic zipper bag
• Water
• Food colouring
• Sticky tape

INSTRUCTIONS
1. GRAB A GLASS: Fill a cup with tap water and add a few
drops of food colouring so you can see it more clearly.
2. POUR IT IN: Pour the contents of the cup into the bag
so that it fills up about 2.5cm (one inch) from the bottom.
3. SEAL AND HANG THE BAG: Tightly secure the bag
using the ziplock, and stick the two top corners of the
bag to a window that gets sunlight.
4. WAIT AND WATCH: Water droplets will stick to the
inside of the bag. They will appear to be falling back
towards to the pool at the bottom.

WHAT DID YOU LEARN?

The heat from the Sun through the window is
TIP!
Why not grab a pen
trapped inside the bag, causing the water to
evaporate. As the water vapour rises, it and draw a picture on
condenses into liquid droplets, and these the outside of the bag?
become heavy enough to fall back down again. Maybe some clouds at
This looks like rain.
the top and a sea at
the bottom. 4
1 2

94
 EVEN MORE COOL ACTIVITIES TO TRY!
PICK UP AN ICE CUBE
Ice is very cold. If you hold it for too long in your hands, it
can do two things: start to burn your skin and melt. The
burning is due to the water in your skin’s cells burning, so
you shouldn’t hold ice for too long. If you want to pick up
some ice for a while, then maybe you can try using
something else, like a piece of string! No, really!

WHAT YOU’LL NEED

• Ice cubes
• String
• Salt
• Cold water

INSTRUCTIONS
1. GRAB THE STRING: Place an ice cube in a bowl of
water, and use the string to try and pick it up. Tricky,
isn’t it?
2. SPRINKLE SOME SALT: Why not place the string on top
of the ice cube, then take a pinch of salt and sprinkle it
over the string?
3. WAIT A MINUTE!: Count down from 60 to 0, and lift
the string. Can you believe what has just happened?

WHAT DID YOU LEARN?

Water freezes at 0 degrees Celsius (32 degrees
Fahrenheit), but when salt is added, the freezing point is MAKE YOUR OWN
lowered. This causes the ice to melt, but because the mix
of salt and water dilutes, the freezing point quickly rises
again. When this happens, ice forms over the string and
FROST
traps it close to the rest of the ice cube. That’s why you Look at parked cars on a very cold morning. It’s likely that
can lift it. a layer of frost has formed across the windows, which
will need to be scraped away before the vehicles can be
driven safely. But how has this happened?
First of all, water vapour has turned back into liquid
water on the surface. This is condensation. It happens if
the water vapour has cooled to its dew point – the
2 temperature at which water in the air has condensed to
create water droplets.
1 Secondly, when the temperature drops below freezing,
the droplets turn into small ice crystals. This is frost. Here,
you will create your own frost on the outside of an
aluminium can.

WHAT YOU’LL NEED

• Two aluminium cans
• Salt
• Crushed Ice
• Ice cube trays

INSTRUCTIONS
1. CRUSH SOME ICE: Pour water into some ice cube trays
and pop them in the freezer. When ice cubes form,
remove and crush them.
4 2. FILL THE CANS: Add the crushed ice to both of your
3 aluminium cans, filling each of them to the brim.
3. ADD THE SALT: Now, pour salt on to the top of the ice
in just one of the cans and give it a shake.
4. WAIT AND SEE: Wait a few minutes, then compare
both cans. The can containing the ice should have a layer
of frost on the outside.

WHAT DID YOU LEARN?

When you added salt, the freezing point of the ice
dropped, causing it to melt. The surface of the can also
dropped below freezing, so water vapour in the air
condensed on the sides and froze. The temperature inside
the other can didn’t drop below freezing, which is why no
© Getty Images

frost formed on that one!

95
KEEP TRACK OF
EVER-CHANGING YOU
WEATHER DI D
KNOW?
SEE HOW WEATHER FRONTS WORK, CHECK OUT ONE Weather diaries have been
kept for centuries. The Met
OF NATURE’S WAY OF FORECASTING THE WEATHER Office’s website lets you see
some important historical
AND MONITOR WHAT HAPPENS IN YOUR AREA private diaries dated from
1755 to 1892.

CREATE A SIMPLE Scan with your

WEATHER STATION phone or tablet
https://bit.ly/31A6cbZ
Want to know if the day is dry and fine, or raining? All
you need is a pine cone. They usually fall to the ground in
autumn, so look out for them from September in parks
and gardens.

WHAT YOU’LL NEED

• A pine cone

INSTRUCTIONS
1. GRAB A PINE CONE: Simply take your pine and sit it on
a window sill where there’s going to be a lot of light.
2. MAKE YOUR OBSERVATIONS: Look at the pine cone,
see if it is open or closed, then make a note of the
weather outside.

WHAT DID YOU LEARN?

When the weather is dry, the pine cones will
open to release their seeds. When it is damp
and cold, they will close, also staying shut
when it is raining. During these conditions,
the seeds will get wet, making them less
likely to fly a long distance with the wind.

96
 KEEP TRACK OF EVER-CHANGING WEATHER
EXPERIMENT WITH
WEATHER FRONTS 2
A weather front is a boundary between two masses of
air. They can cause events such as wind, rain and
1
extreme weather. When a front passes over land, the
weather changes. The temperature can become
warmer or colder, and it may feel more humid or dry.
Here, we are going to use warm and cold water to
represent warm and cold air. You will see what

SAFETY
happens when they meet. Hot water is involved
here, so get an adult to help you.

WHAT YOU’LL NEED

• A clear container
FIRST!
Be very careful when
• Hot water you pour hot water.
• Ice cube Ask an adult to
• Two different colours of food dye
help you!
INSTRUCTIONS
1. FILL THE CONTAINER: Pour tap water into the container and leave it
for about an hour or so to allow it to warm to room temperature.
2. CREATE ICE CUBES: Pour cold water and the other food coloring
into an ice cube tray and freeze it. KEEP A
3. PREPARE THE HOT WATER: When the ice cubes are ready, mix the
other food colouring with the hot water.
4. USE THE ICE CUBE: Place an ice cube into the container at one end.
WEATHER DIARY
It will start to melt. You have learned how to measure air pressure,
5. POUR THE HOT WATER: Now, gently pour the hot water into the temperature and the wind direction (pages 88 and 89).
other end of the container. You also know how to make a rain gauge (see page 85).
So why not start to monitor the weather each day? It is
very easy to keep a weather diary. Simply copy the chart
WHAT DID YOU LEARN? below on a piece of paper and fill in the blanks. It’s a
great way to keep an eye on your weather experiments.
The warm water will rise and the cold water will sink. This is what Can you spot any patterns? Is the temperature always
happens when two air masses meet. The warm air will rise because it low when it rains, for instance?
is lighter than the cold air. If you had placed a barrier in the centre of
the container then added the hot and cold water, you’d have created
a stationary front. This can happen around mountains. WHAT YOU’LL NEED
• Pen
• Paper
3

AIR WIND
DATE TIME TEMP. RAINFALL WEATHER
PRESSURE DIRECTION

MONDAY

TUESDAY
5
WEDNESDAY

THURSDAY

FRIDAY

SATURDAY
© Getty Images

SUNDAY

97
 FU N FACTS ABO UT
THE WEATH E R
Steel train tracks

Wind doesn’t
1684
The year the
can start to
expand in
heatwaves
River Thames,
actually make London, froze
a sound for TWO
MONTHS

Blooadin
red rl in
fel la,
Keraa in
-135.8° F Indi 01
20
-93.2° C
Coldest e
temperature Earth is closest to thter
in
ever recorded Sun in January – w
on Earth, in in the Northern
Antarctica Hemisphere

3,000,000 Flashes of lightnin

g
© Getty Images

around the world

each DAY
98
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Puzzles Activities Experiments Facts More!

 Future
Gen us
Weather
Ever wondered what makes Earth’s weather so wild?
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massive bursts of electricity made during lightning
storms, discover everything you need to know about
what really happens up in our planet’s atmosphere.

Inside, you’ll find out how you can bring the weather
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What will you discover?

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