DIY Friday: Wind Engineer Project #2

Which Way the Wind?

The Little Voyager Weather Station already had a barometer and thermometer, but still wasn't quite complete. We needed to see the wind direction and the changes in direction to help us predict the weather! So today we built a weather vane. This project will actually count toward our Wind Engineer badge, even though it is also an option for the Meteorologist. There are so many projects to choose from, we will definitely doing more than the three required ones for each badge!

We started off with a book hunt -- looking for books with wind themes or events, and added them to our weather/wind non-fiction collection.

Then we gathered our weather vane materials.

Spiderman took our plastic container out to the play area and filled it with sand. 

We cut a tail out of an old file folder, cut a slit in one end of our straw, and used a glue stick (which didn't seem to really do much, as far as holding the tail in place) and slid the tail into the slit in the straw.

Rosetta colored other end of the straw with a bright red permanent marker. This is the end that will point to the direction of the wind. (Pointing north, means the wind is coming from the north and blowing south.)

Next, we pushed the pin through the straw, off center, closer to the tail end, 

as in the how-to video we watched.

Finally, we bent some pipe cleaners for wind direction indicators and stuck them into the sand. We used a compass to tell us which direction (N - S - E - W) to put in which location, once we were outside.

See our weather vane in action!

DIY Friday - Meteorologist Project #1

For our second DIY badge, the little voyagers will be creating a weather station. learning how to keep records and make observations, as well as try a little weather predicting!

This first project is one part of our weather station -- a barometer. 

In theory, when the weather changes, the air pressure changes, too. Higher pressure means fair weather, while lower pressure indicates a change is coming! Like rain!

This is an easy-to-build, basic barometer. We aren't measuring precise air pressure, just noting the changes for our "norm," the rubber band/blue water line.

What You Need to Make One:

Glass bottle (about 12oz.)

Glass jar (about 18oz.)

Rubber Band

Water

Food Coloring

Saralina will be helping out with this project: 

Pour enough water into the jar so that when the bottle in inverted, 

the end is below the water.

Add food coloring -- This makes the water level easy to see.

Stir it around to blend the coloring with the water.

Invert the bottle so the top is in the water.

Put the rubber band around the jar and move it down to the water level.

Try to make it line up evenly right on the water line. This will be your "norm." 

NOTE: If it is raining while you build this, your "norm" might be low. We had rain the next day, so the pressure may have been on the low side when we made it.

Tip the jar and bottle slightly to let air out of the bottle. You should see a bubble  come up.

And finally, pick a location that does NOT receive direct sun. Put it in an out-of-the-way shady spot, but one where you will be able to check it often, especially if you live in one of those places where, "If you don't like the weather, wait five minutes and it will change."

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Keep watch for a weather progress report; the little voyagers have been vigilant in their weather recording duties!

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CREDITS: Photographs taken by little voyager, Rosetta. She is quite the budding photographer!