What's the weather like?

The weather is something that affects all of us. Although maybe you are not aware of it, I am sure that you usually check the weather forecast before going outside to know what clothes wear, if you need to bring an umbrella, etc. Today, we are going to focus on meteorology and its close relation to Mathematics, especially to probability and statistics.

Meteorology is the scientific study of the atmosphere that focuses on weather processes and forecasting. The meteorological phenomena are bound by the variables that exist in Earth’s atmosphere. All of these variables can be measured through different instruments. Meteorologists are the people who analyse and study the atmospheric conditions of a place. After some time, they can talk about a kind of climate to this studied area. Finally, they can make predictions and elaborate forecasts that we normally consult.

Meteorological forecasts are completed processes in which lots of variables and elements are involved. Meteorologists measure and analyse temperature, precipitation, air pressure, humidity, etc. and they use different instruments to collect data. The most common tool is the thermometer, which is used to measure the temperature. The wind can be measured with the anemometer (speed) and the weather vane (direction). The barometer measures the atmospheric pressure whereas the rain meter collects the precipitations. In the following video, the students can learn about different types of weather.

After seeing all these contents, I wonder, how can we apply them at school? We have to think about different ideas. For instance, in my last Practicum, the children measured the temperature every day with a thermometer that they had in a window and they noted the grades down in their notebooks with the date and a drawing of the weather. It was quite simple and it helped them to know the temperature of each day, their variations and the atmospheric weather just by watching at the sky and expressing their views. They also noted down the season. In the end, they carried out a brief debate about the weather changes, their impressions, etc.

It could be a great activity for your classes and I would add something more. Since we are dealing with probability, it would be positive that everyday children look for the probability of precipitation, which appears in the official app of the AEMET, for instance. They can note it down too and draw conclusions about probability with the example of the weather. Using this app, they can also work with other items, such as wind speed or direction. If we want to go further, they can represent the collected data in some graphics so that they will study statistics at the same time. This is the link of the official page: AEMET Official Webpage

Sports Festival

In this post, we are going to deal with the concept of statistics, analysis of data and its application to our school daily activities. Statistics is the science which studies data collection and analysis and it is present in several fields of our life, such as medicine, economy, sports, weather, and also at school. It is really useful to teach statistics to students because it implies understanding, presentation of data and concluding different issues which can be applied in their daily lives later on.

In this case, we will present a functional activity that can be carried out in our school. The context is the following. All the teachers in our school, especially the Physical Education teachers, are concerned about the free time activities that children do nowadays. Instead of playing traditional games or doing sports, they spent the evenings in their bedrooms playing computer games or surfing on the internet, that is, in front of a screen. This can become a really dangerous problem for their health, so the teachers want to organise a “Sports Festival” at school to encourage learners to practise sport as a leisure activity. However, they do not want to select the kind of sports because they do not know which are the students’ preferences.

For this reason, the students of the sixth year of Primary Education are going to do research following the statistical process. They will be divided into five groups and each one will be in charge of the classes of a level. The first step of the process is the collection of data. Each group will write down on a table which is the favourite sport of their classmates.

The second stage is the interpretation of the data collected and its representation in a graphic. In this way, the learners will see perfectly the differences between the most and the less preferable sports in the school. The graphics allow them to observe the information in a different, colourful and easier way. In this case, they will use a bar diagram and a sector one to see the percentages. To create the graphics, they can use the App “Chart draw” which allow them to create different kinds of graphics. You can download it in the following link: Chart Draw App

Finally, it is time to draw conclusions. Our students will draw their conclusions about the sports preferences at school and they will discuss them in a debate with the rest of the teachers in order to organise better the Sports Festival. This activity can help them to improve their oral expression in public with the support of the results represented in the graphics.

Our own measuring instrument

We don’t really know the potentiality that our body has for doing things. One of them is the ability to measure using different parts of it. As we have seen in a previous post, in ancient times, people used parts of their bodies as tools of measurement because there weren’t other objects that could measure.

Nowadays, although we can use more accurate systems to measure, as the meter system, I think that measuring with our body could be an enjoyable and exciting activity for our children in order to introduce them in the basic measurement concepts. In this way, they will be active and learning by doing, which is the most significant activity that can be done to acquire any knowledge.

After watching this video, the activity that I suggest is quite simple, but also engaging. Each child will select the parts of the body that he or she wants to use to measure different objects (the foot, the cubit, the hand…). Then, to make the practice more individual, each student will also select ten class elements that he or she wants to measure with the selected parts. Once they have made such decisions, it’s time to free measure! They will collect the information that they get in their notebooks. 

However, it is important to make our children aware that this system is not really precise, because we don’t have all the same size. For instance, the length of a child’s arm is different from the arm of another classmate. For this reason, once they have finished measuring, we will compare the results between children who measure the same object or space. In this way, they will realize that the length of one side of the classroom can be twenty steps or eighteen, depending on the person who has measured it. Therefore, we can say that our body is the most personal instrument to measure! Let’s try it!

What is MEASUREMENT?

First of all, before starting with other aspects or resources, we need to know what is the measurement, which can be measurable and some basic foundations about the topic. In this first post we are going to deal with these issues because we can’t address something if we don’t know it before, don’t you think?

According to the Dictionary of the Royal Spanish Academy, to measure is the action of “comparing a quantity with its respective unit to discover how many times the second one is included in the first one”. This definition is only one of hundreds of them and we will take it just like a reference because our aim is the practical application of the basic concept.

However, what is the origin of measuring? Since ancient times, measuring has been a vital necessity for men and women. The first units of measurement appear with the first tools invented by human beings. The primitive societies needed rudimentary measures for several tasks: the construction of shelters, the dressmaking of clothes or just to be able to cook food to survive.

The most ancient systems of weight and measurement that we know were created in the ancient civilizations of Mesopotamia, Egypt and the Indian Valley. There were also references mentioned in the Bible. Many measurement systems were based on the use of the different parts of the human body and several tools found in each natural environment. Using the following video, we can teach our students how to measure using parts of their bodies. It can be a useful and enjoyable way to introduce them to the world of measurement.

Nowadays, we use the International System of Units (ISU) or (SI) in Spanish, which is the current decimal metrical system that establishes the units and magnitudes to be used internationally. This system consists of seven magnitudes used and their respective units of measurement: length, mass, time, electric intensity, temperature, light intensity and quantity of substance. Although this is an international system, there are some countries which have their measurement systems and can use both of them, as in England. I have found really interesting the following video to make children aware of the importance of using an international measurement system. The examples of measuring objects with pencils of different sizes can be carried out also in class with our students to see the differences.

The most important thing is that our learners can practically apply this theory using the proper units of measurement in their daily life. For this reason, we must teach it through meaningful situations that happens constantly. Finally, I suggest this video to sum up this introductory lesson about measurement for our students. It also includes a fun quiz at the end to check the acquisition of the previous contents. It uses the English system.