A digital, inquiry-based lesson on the rain shadow effect for middle school

This article introduces a middle-school level, NGSS-aligned, inquiry-based approach to teaching weather and climate concepts in grades six through eight using free online resources including Google Earth. Inquiry-based learning has been shown to improve student achievement, but Earth's climate systems are complex and macroscopic, making inquiry-based teaching difficult. This tends to result in a teacher-centric approach to teaching climate in middle school, where lectures and authoritative videos predominate. Unfortunately, in this educational setting, many people develop climate misconceptions and tend to view climate change as a minor issue or a matter of personal belief. This lesson offers an alternative approach in which technology provides a scaffold to inquiry-based learning. After an unusual weather phenomenon such as a snowman in the desert is introduced, students use Google Earth to explore the contrasting forest and desert found on opposite sides of some mountain ranges. With Nullschool Earth, students explore daily historical wind data to model prevailing winds and develop an understanding of how patterns in the motion of air masses create the rain shadow effect. This lesson helps students begin to model the complex Earth systems that create climate and to understand the distinction between weather and climate.