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5th grade · Science · Unit 6 of 12

Weather and the Water Cycle

What makes the weather change

What your child practices

How the Sun, air, water and land interact to cause daily weather, the water cycle, tools for measuring weather, and why long-term forecasting is hard.

New York State Learning Standards learning standard: 5-ESS2-1 · how the air, water and land interact to make weather

How we explain it

Children can open this short lesson before they practice.

  1. Weather is what the air is like at a certain time and place.
  2. Rain, snow, sleet and hail are all precipitation.
  3. Warm air rises. Low pressure usually brings clouds and rain. High pressure brings clear skies.
  4. A thermometer measures temperature, a rain gauge measures rain and an anemometer measures wind speed.

Example: The air pressure is falling. What weather might come? Low pressure usually brings clouds and precipitation. Answer: cloudy, wet weather

Weather and the Water Cycle in New York

In the New York State Learning Standards, this is unit 6 of 12 in 5th grade Science, after Measuring Matter and before Energy from the Sun.

Gradelings describes a child's practice on this unit as Beginning, Approaching, Meeting or Exceeding (Four practice steps). That reflects practice, not a report-card mark: the teacher decides the mark.

Source: New York State Education Department (NYSED)

Sample questions

A taste of this unit. In the app, questions change every time and get easier or harder to match your child.

  1. Question 1

    Which cloud is tall and dark and can bring thunderstorms?

    • cirrus
    • cumulonimbus
    • stratus

  2. Question 2

    High pressure usually brings…

    • clear, fair weather
    • storms
    • tornadoes

  3. Question 3

    Why do forecasters use computers and many measurements?

    • weather never changes
    • weather has many parts that interact
    • clouds cannot be seen

  4. Question 4

    Which tool measures how much rain fell?

    • thermometer
    • wind vane
    • rain gauge

  5. Question 5

    What is a front in weather?

    • where two air masses meet
    • a kind of snow
    • a very big cloud

  6. Question 6

    Why can a town beside a big lake have milder weather than a town far inland?

    • water never moves
    • air has no weight
    • land and water heat and cool differently

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