Education


 


Teachers! Learn how your school can measure and report precipitation to help the National Weather Service!

A great benefit of CoCoRaHS is that it provides real science activities for the classroom.

CoCoRaHS staff have worked with teachers and curriculum developers to curate a series of lesson plans and activities below.  These lesson plans are developed for a variety of grade levels.  Read here about how CoCoRaHS meets state and national standards for grades K-2, 3-5, 6-7, 9-12.

Lessons

4-H curriculum: Tracking Climate in your Backyard (21 separate lessons for ages 8-12):

The Paleontological Research Institution and the 4-H Youth Development program at Cornell Cooperative Extension have developed a curriculum on weather and climate for upper elementary and secondary school youth: Tracking Climate in Your Backyard.

School-Based Participatory Science (A series of 9 lessons spread throughout the school year for middle grades science):

This National Science Foundation-funded project, conducted by a team of North Carolina-based educators and researchers, wrote this series of 9 lesson plans with the goal of bringing citizen science (also known as participatory science) into classrooms to engage students with NGSS-aligned science content and practices. In using the materials, students contribute to CoCoRaHS and use CoCoRaHS data to learn weather concepts and science practices.

Rain Measurements Tell a Story (elementary level):

Written by the UCAR Center for Science Education - this lesson explores data from an unusual rain event.

OLYMPEX Advanced Data Analysis Exercise (high school level):

Written by NASA Goddard Space Flight Center - This data exercise has students look up precipitation ground data and satellite data for a site in Washington State and do a comparison using a data table and a graph. The activity is expected to take about 45 minutes.

How Does Your Precipitation Data Measure Up? (high school level):

Written by NASA Global Precipitation Measurement Mission - This data exercise has students compare NASA satellite precipitation data to your measured CoCoRaHS data (or a selected station near your school).

 

See more about our outreach, school visits, library programming and more!