Middle School Science Project
Prediction Snow Days and School Cancellations:
A Standard One Information Literacy Activity
For this assignment you will be writing a paper for your teacher --and, by following the instructions below, you will also be developing information literacy skills.
- The information literate student determines which information and how much information will be needed to complete an assignment.
1. Think about what your teacher is asking you to do. In this case you have a very specific assignment -- to find out how to predict a snow day, based on information about school cancellations due to snow storms in the past.
2. Think about what kinds of questions you need to ask to formulate an answer for this assignment. There is probably no such thing as a ready-made formula for predicting snow days which can be found in any one website, or book, for that matter.
3. Visit the links below to get a general impression of what kinds of information each one has. Making a brief not about each will help you organize your final research.
4. Now think about how you will combine the different kinds of information available to you in these websites to form a conclusion.
5. Since numbers will be an important part of this assignment, think about how you will handle them. Will you want to make a chart or a graph, or something else?
6. Now, look again at each link below and begin to collect and analyze data about past snowstorms that cancelled school. By looking at the trends, patterns, and similarities you will be able to make predictions about the possibility of a snow day depending on the details you have about past storms related to school closure .
7. It is illegal to copy the work of another person work as your own. Even copying someone else's partial sentence into your own work is plagerism. Any direct copying must be put it in quotation marks and cited. Think instead of how you can read or hear what someone else has written and put it in your own words, adding your own original thoughts where appropriate.
- The information literate student identifies a variety of types and formats of potential sources of information.
1. As you look at the web sites listed below, see if you can tell if they are informal (such as home-made) or formal, that is, from an established institution, such as a government site, a university or a major organization. Take a quick look at this site : Very Current Weather,in Beverly, MA and try to judge whether it is a formal or informal site.
2. Think about how you might judge the reliability of a web site.
3. As you look at each site, see if you can guess who the intended audience is.
4. As you look at each website, think about whether it is a primary source or secondary source. Your instructor will explain the difference. Do you think any of these websites are primary sources? When you hear the weather report on TV or the radio, is this a primary or secondary source for weather?
7. Just as with a book or periodical, you will need to list internet sources in your bibliography. How do you cite an internet source?
8. Your teacher has provided all the links you will need to complete this assignment. However it sometimes helps to "think outside of the box". For example, it might be useful to know if there is a town, county or statewide policy which determines the criteria for school cancelations due to snow or ice storms. Alternatively, maybe decisions about school cancellations are left up to the judgement of one of more people. What are their criteria for closure? How does this fit in with what your results?
- The information literate student thinks about how to limit the amount of time spent looking for what is needed from each information source.
1. Think about how the organization of each site made it easier or more difficult for you to get the exact information you needed. Were you able to get to it directly? Were the paths to it logical?
2. Probably you would have found little information in books on snowdays, but you might have found some newspaper articles. Can you make a guess as to why in each case?
- The information literate student reevaluates the process of getting the information needed.
Now that you have researched this project, can you see how it could have been done more efficiently? Were you spending any time looking at information which did not contribute to the final project?
WEATHER LINKS:
The Storm Event Database: use this dabatase to collect data about number of inches that fell, temperature, wind-speed, time, date, duration, etc. This datebase includes information about all types of weather events including hurricanes, thunderstorms, tornadoes, and floods. Simply enter the state you are interested in (Massachusetts), and then the type of event you are looking for (snow and ice storms). Then click "list storms" to get a list of all the snowstorms that have occurred in Massachusetts from 1993 to the present. http://www4.ncdc.noaa.gov/cgi-win/wwcgi.dll?wwevent~storms
The National Weather Service Forecast Office: this database is similar to the Storm Event Database except that it only lists the storms from 1997 to the present. Use this dabatase to collect additional data about storms that cancelled school. http://www.erh.noaa.gov/box/snow-info2.shtml
Directions for Collecting and Analyzing Radar and Satellite Images:
In addition to collecting data about past snowstorms, you can also analyze radar and satellite images to look for similar trends or patterns. Use the radar and satellite images to track the storm's movement over a 3 to 5 day period, from the time it started to the day(s) it hit the Boston area.
Radar Pictures of Snowstorms: http://www4.ncdc.noaa.gov/cgi-win/wwcgi.dll?WWNEXRAD~Images2
Satellite Images of Snowstorms: http://lwf.ncdc.noaa.gov/servlets/GoesBrowser
Collecting and Analyzing Data on Upcoming Snowstorms
Use the links below to collect data about upcoming storms. Compare forecasts with the data you collected about past storms and try to predict if the storm will be a "closer" or a "loser".
Snow-forecast.com: this website will give you forecasts for the next 3 to 7 days as well as other information. http://www.snowforecast.com/
WHDH Channel 7 School Cancellation Bulletin Board: want to know if school is cancelled today? Click here to find out if the latest snowstorm is a "closer" or a "loser". http://www.whdh.com/stormforce/
If you enjoyed exploring this aspect of weather, you might like to look at some of our books on the topic, such as the wonderfully illustrated National Geographic book, Restless Earth: Disasters of Nature, or another book entitled Severe and Unusual Weather. To see more weather titles at this library or at other libraries in the consortium, simply click onto the Library Catalog if you are in the library, or from outside the library you may visit our web page at http://www.noblenet.org/bhcc/ and choose Catalog. You can search by title, keyword (try severe weather), author, etc. Experiment. When you find one book on a topic, chances are there will be similar books right next to it.
For newspaper articles about past severe weather in Massachusetts, go to our web page at http://www.noblenet.org/bhcc/. Click on Electronic databases and then look at the databases listed at the top to find Massachusetts Newspapers. You can search by different newspaper titles. If you have time, you can try different search options or subjects. For example, if you were born in Massachusetts, you might like to see what the weather was like on the day you were born.