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4th grade · Science · Unit 14 of 17

Weather or Climate?

Weather is today; climate is the pattern over many years.

What your child practices

Practices telling weather (conditions on one day) from climate (the usual pattern over many years), using Texas examples: the dry, sunny climate of far West Texas and the humid climate of the Gulf Coast.

Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS) teks student expectation: 4.10(C) · telling weather from climate

How we explain it

Children can open this short lesson before they practice.

  1. Weather is what the air is like now, like a rainy afternoon.
  2. Climate is the usual pattern of weather over many years.
  3. One odd day does not change a place's climate.

Example: “It snowed in our town yesterday.” Is that weather or climate? It describes one day, not many years. Answer: weather

Weather or Climate? in Texas

In the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS), this is unit 14 of 17 in 4th grade Science, after Seasons & Moon Phases and before Texas Energy Resources.

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: Texas Education Agency (TEA)

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

    What would you check to choose crops to grow for years?

    • The climate
    • One rainy day
    • This hour's wind
    • Tomorrow's forecast

  2. Question 2

    Scientists study climate by looking at weather records from…

    • one morning
    • one hour
    • one minute
    • many years

  3. Question 3

    Which is a weather statement?

    • Dallas has hot summers
    • A thunderstorm hit Dallas this afternoon
    • Dallas gets thunderstorms most springs
    • Dallas usually gets mild winters

  4. Question 4

    "El Paso gets little rain most years." This describes…

    • a fossil
    • climate
    • weather
    • erosion

  5. Question 5

    Weather is…

    • the conditions outside on a day
    • the shape of the land
    • the pattern over 30 years
    • a kind of rock

  6. Question 6

    "There is a 60% chance of rain today." This is about…

    • fossils
    • erosion
    • climate
    • weather

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