Fourth Grade, Weather & Atmosphere Science Experiments (35 results)
Fun science experiments to explore everything from kitchen chemistry to DIY mini drones. Easy to set up and perfect for home or school. Browse the collection and see what you want to try first!
Everybody talks about the weather, but nobody does anything about it.
- Charles Dudley Warner
Weather and atmospheric science offer lots of opportunities for interesting explorations. It's a satisfyingly complex area, with lots of online resources so you can make your project as easy or as advanced as you want. And when you're done, you'll have a science fair project everyone can talk about.
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STEM Activity
96 reviews
Are you eager to understand how everyday items work, or interested in making useful objects and instruments yourself? Have you ever imagined you could build your own thermometer? In this activity, you will make a liquid thermometer to track how temperatures vary with location, indoors or outdoors. What will turn out to be the hottest spot in your home? What about the coolest? Your very own homemade thermometer will be able to tell you!
STEM Activity
41 reviews
Have you ever wondered where the rain that falls from the sky comes from? You might say the rain falls from the clouds, but what are clouds and where do they come from? All these questions and many more can be answered by looking into how water moves on land and in the atmosphere, which is described in the water cycle. In this activity, you will investigate some of the processes that make water move in and out of the atmosphere by making a miniature water cycle model inside a plastic bag.
On a windy day it is hard to keep your hat on! The power of the wind can even be strong enough to power large wind turbines to make electricity! In this experiment, find out how you can make your own instrument to measure the speed and power of the wind. How does it work?
STEM Activity
12 reviews
Have you ever added a spoon of sugar to your tea and wondered why it disappeared? Where did it go? The sugar did not actually disappear—it changed from its solid form into a dissolved form in a process called chemical dissolution. The result is a tea-sugar mixture in which individual sugar molecules become uniformly distributed in the tea. But what happens if you increase the amount of sugar that you add to your tea? Does it still dissolve? In this science activity, you will find out how…
STEM Activity
25 reviews
Have you ever seen a weather forecast on TV? If so, you might have noticed the letters "H" and "L" moving around on the weather map. They are often referred to as zones of "high pressure" (H) and "low pressure" (L). The pressure they are talking about is the atmospheric pressure. Changes in air pressure can forecast short-term changes in the weather. But how do you know if the air pressure changes, or if it is high or low? Scientists have developed an instrument called a barometer that can…
Earth's atmosphere, the ocean of air that blankets the planet, is mostly nitrogen and oxygen, with small amounts of other gases. How much oxygen is present in air at sea level? In air high up in the Appalachians or Rockies? Atop Mount Everest? How much oxygen is present in the air you breathe? Here's a project that shows you how to measure the percentage of oxygen in an air sample.
Tornadoes are a very destructive weather phenomenon that is very hard to predict. Certain weather conditions can indicate if a tornado is likely to occur, but the path that the tornado will take is completely unpredictable. Storm chasers are people who chase tornadoes and try to capture them on film or video. They often have a sense of predicting where and when a tornado will strike, but the best images are also due to a bit of luck and survival instinct. Even though tornadoes are…
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STEM Activity
13 reviews
Does your hair go frizzy during "April showers," when the weather turns damp? Strands of hair can relax and lengthen when the humidity (or the amount of water vapor in the air) increases, and then contract again when the humidity decreases. In fact, the rate of change in the length of hair strands is so dependable that they can actually be used as the basis for a hygrometer, a device that measures the humidity level in the air.
Smog days are often posted in your local newspaper. Check how many smog days your city has had in the last year. How does it compare to to other years? You can also take pictures of your city landscape on high and low smog days. How do the pictures compare? How does smog in the atmosphere affect visibility? What is smog made of? You can use tongue depressors smeared with Vaseline to check for smog particles in different areas; just stick in the ground and look at them a few days later. …
Before you head for school for the day, you might check the weather to see whether or not you need to wear a jacket or bring an umbrella. It is pretty easy for you to check the TV or internet to see what the weather will be like today, tomorrow, or even next week. The modern-day science of meteorology, or studying and predicting the weather, has many advanced tools at its disposal that make it easy for you to get this information.
How did people predict the weather before the invention of…
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