Weather Station

Spring is here, however the weather hasn't gotten the message. We have been cooped up in the house for days on end. We have also been sick. So when the sun peeks out we soak up as much Vitamin D as possible. Today happened to be a stay home because we are sick kinda day. So I had to dig in the treasure box for something to do. Our treasure box is a shelf in mom and dad's closet. I keep things in there for days that we need something constructive to do. 

Harley man and I went shopping several weeks ago in Denver. My favorite stores are Michael's and Hobby Lobby. So of course I made Harley stop at the 1st ones we saw. I actually had a list, but as we wandered around I saw a section of Science related projects. The weather one caught my eye because I have been racking my brain about how to build one. Tada!!! Someone already did the work! They had several solar projects but I only had room in our budget for this one at the time. As our budget allows will be getting more later on in the summer. 

The instructions we super easy. It didn't come with the soda bottle so you have to find one of those.

It said to weight the bottle with sand but since it was snowing out I couldn't get the sand. So for today we filled it with water and added food coloring. Kids wanted to use all the colors so we did. :) 

They liked watching as I added a new color. In the end we had brown, but it was fun to watch the water slowly color. 

As we added each section to the top of the bottle we talked about why we would need to check that kind of weather. The 1st was the rain gauge, 2nd was a thermometer, 3rd was a wind vane with compass, and 4th was the anemometer. I was amazed at how much they already knew about each section. Mallory had a light bulb moment when we got to the anemometer. My parents have a digital one at their house. It's wired up to a pole by their back door and you can see all the readings in the office on a special screen. Grandma checks the wind everyday to see if we can grind hay. 

I had to get creative when we go ready to put it outside. the wind blows like crazy here. I didn't want our new project to get knocked over and broken on it's first time out. So I go a broken cinder block and shoved the soda bottle in. Tada!!! It works. We have been watching it out the window all day. We will check the rain gauge before bed since it has been raining off and on today. 

When we decide to try the other experiments that were suggested we will dump out the colored water and plant a flower for the terrarium. As we start to transition into a homeschooling family in June we will be checking this everyday and charting so the kids can understand the seasons. I had them decorate a page divider and we clipped it in a 3-ringed binder. My black ink ran out in our printer so I wasn't able to print off the charts that go behind. I will add them on here at a later date.