Severe Weather Crash Course Kids #28.2

Contributor
Crash Course Kids
Type Category
Instructional Materials
Types
Animation/Movie
Note
This resource, vetted by NSTA curators, is provided to teachers along with suggested modifications to make it more in line with the vision of the NGSS. While not considered to be "fully aligned," the resources and expert recommendations provide teachers with concrete examples and expert guidance using the EQuIP rubric to adapted existing resources. Read more here.

Reviews

Description

This brief video from Crash Course Kids introduces students to severe weather. It explains that severe weather is more extreme than normal daily weather conditions.  There is a brief description of the following forms of severe weather:  tornados, hurricanes, blizzards, flooding and drought.  The video then gives an example of the impact of severe weather on the biosphere and geosphere.  This example uses the impact of drought and flooding on plants, animals and land.  The conclusion ties it up with two questions to ask about weather to tell if it is severe:  “Does it put life or property at risk?” and “Does it have a major impact on the biosphere and the geosphere?”

Intended Audience

Educator and learner
Educational Level
  • Middle School
  • Upper Elementary
Language
English
Access Restrictions

Free access - The right to view and/or download material without financial, registration, or excessive advertising barriers.

Performance Expectations

3-ESS3-1 Make a claim about the merit of a design solution that reduces the impacts of a weather-related hazard.

Clarification Statement: Examples of design solutions to weather-related hazards could include barriers to prevent flooding, wind resistant roofs, and lightning rods.

Assessment Boundary: none

This resource appears to be designed to build towards this performance expectation, though the resource developer has not explicitly stated so.

Comments about Including the Performance Expectation
This video does not make a claim or discuss solutions to weather-related hazards. Prior to making a claim about the merit of a solution that reduces the impacts of a weather-related hazard, students will need to be familiar with different types of a weather-related hazard and the impacts they have. The video use the terms biosphere, atmosphere, hydrosphere and geosphere. The teacher would need to assist students in understanding these terms either prior to watching the video or during the viewing. This video could be combined with Wacky Weather (see related resource) or other engineering design task where students would be designing solutions to reduce the impact of a weather-related hazard.

Science and Engineering Practices

This resource appears to be designed to build towards this science and engineering practice, though the resource developer has not explicitly stated so.

Comments about Including the Science and Engineering Practice
In this video, students are obtaining information about severe weather from one source. To more fully address the full element of the practice, students would obtain information from other sources and combine their information using graphic organizers or other methods of recording information.

Disciplinary Core Ideas

This resource appears to be designed to build towards this disciplinary core idea, though the resource developer has not explicitly stated so.

Comments about Including the Disciplinary Core Idea
The video identifies five different weather related hazards and describes them briefly. It does not discuss how to reduce the impacts, but gives an example of the impacts of two different severe weather events on the biosphere and the geosphere.

Crosscutting Concepts

This resource appears to be designed to build towards this crosscutting concept, though the resource developer has not explicitly stated so.

Comments about Including the Crosscutting Concept
The video discusses the impact of severe weather on the biosphere and the geosphere. This would be a good connection to make to the concept of systems as the biosphere and geosphere are systems. In addition, the weather related hazard could be defined as a system. Each of these could be described in terms of their components and their interactions.

Resource Quality

  • Alignment to the Dimensions of the NGSS: When viewing the video, students are using the practice of obtaining information about the severe weather which integrates the elements of the dimensions of science and engineering practices and the disciplinary core ideas. Teachers would need to explicitly add a crosscutting concept. The element of crosscutting concept systems and system models was suggested above. If students have an understanding of a system, then they would identify the components in each system identified and the interactions of the components.

  • Instructional Supports: This video has no instructional supports. The video can be shown multiple times and/or paused periodically with instruction or discussion between pauses. While viewing, students could be using graphic organizers to organize the information in the video.

  • Monitoring Student Progress: This video has no method for monitoring student progress. That would come from teacher questioning.

  • Quality of Technological Interactivity: This resource has no interactive technological components.