Dr. Janice Bytheway is a CIRES Research Scientist with the Hydrometeorology Modeling and Applications Team in the Physical Sciences Laboratory at NOAA. Her fascination with weather started while watching thunderstorms on the front porch with her father as a child growing up in Pennsylvania. When the movie Twister was released while she was in high school, it opened up a whole new world – being a meteorologist wasn’t limited to being a TV weather person or National Weather Service forecaster, but one could make a career actually studying the processes that make weather happen. She has always been interested in how we can observe the atmosphere from far away using satellites and radars and uses the data from these instruments in her work to try to understand how we can better observe and forecast precipitation.
Pre-K: Cloud Watch Party – Watch the clouds from your window or yard. Make popcorn, make it a party! Which is your favorite cloud? Can you draw a picture of your favorite cloud?
K-5: Citizen Science – Take rain gauge samples for CoCoRaHS and contribute to real scientific research.
“Join” the Cloud Appreciation Society by taking a picture of the clouds outside, writing a poem, or painting a picture of the clouds, try and to identify the clouds you see by using the UCAR Cloud Viewer.
The Water Cycle – Need a refresher on the water cycle? Check out this interactive version made by the USGS. You can choose between, beginner, intermediate, or advanced descriptions. What’s it like to be a part of the water cycle? This NOAA activity asks you to roll act as a water molecule and travel through parts of the water cycle
6-8: Cloud in a Bottle – If you have access to a loose bike valve and a two-liter bottle, you can make your own cloud in a bottle! No bike valve? This version can be done with a glass jar, plastic glove, and a match (adult supervision required).
Educators – UCAR offers a full suite of videos, lessons and activities on clouds! And as a GLOBE Partner, they also offer guidance on how to teach the GLOBE Weather Protocol during at-home learning.
9-12: Satellites and Forecasting – This NASA graphing activity asks you to graph precipitation data collected from satellites. Download the GLOBE Observer app to take cloud observations for NASA scientists.
Educators – Have your students engage with real precipitation data while looking at Climate Variability in the North Atlantic.
