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Language Arts Lesson Dealing with Precipitation

Sara Broughton

Title: Comparing Precipitations

Content Area: Language arts (multicultural), math, and science

Materials: Resource materials on rain forests, library, encyclopedias, CD-ROM encyclopedias, world almanacs that show precipitation around the globe, paper, pencils, and ruler

Objective: Students will make a bar graph comparing the monthly precipitation of Missouri to that of rain forests in different countries.

Directions: Introduce the concept of monthly precipitation to the students. Discuss with them places that might receive more rain than others (rain forest and a desert). Break the class into groups of three, assigning each group rain forests of different countries (Brazil, Costa Rica, Ecuador). Each group should research to find out how much rain falls each month in the rain forest and where they live. Let the students know that their information should be accurate because they will be making bar graphs. After they have researched they should begin making their graphs. The bar graphs can be done in several ways but the one on the following page works well because it shows the amount for both locations. Discuss with the students the need for clarity of the information in their graph. Thus, the students should see the need for having the data for each location next to each other on the graph for direct comparison. Once the groups have completed their graphs have them share their results with the class.

Assessment/Evaluation: Students' comparisons or the monthly precipitation locally and in the rain forests could be evaluated on how well they were interpreted from their bar graph as well as how accurate they were. The graph itself can be graded based on its accuracy.

Adaptation: This lesson could be followed up with students actually recording their local precipitation for a month to have a real-life example of what monthly precipitation means. This extension would be great for those students who had trouble with the lesson or in understanding monthly precipitation.