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How to make a weather station for children?

An excellent activity to do with your children at home is home experiments, as they can help children develop new knowledge while having fun. One of the most recommended experiments for your children to carry out at home is the weather station, which consists of a small installation that incorporates different measuring devices and instruments, which record all the atmospheric data continuously, allowing the user to make a series of predictions thanks to monitoring and control of the climate in the area.

Initially, it is highly recommended that your children know what meteorology is all about and, to do so, what better way to do it than by carrying out a fun experiment that will most certainly leave a functional result?

But what is meteorology?

Meteorology is considered a science and technique that studies the behavior and changes of the atmosphere, allowing the phenomena that occur in the atmosphere to be predicted, as well as understanding its composition, structure, evolution and operation in general. On the other hand, knowledge about meteorology, as well as having daily weather forecasts, are very useful for a large list of human activities such as agriculture, navigation, fire prevention, aeronautics, among many others.

Most common instruments in a weather station and how to make it at home

Next, we indicate the steps to follow to make a weather station and its different components, so that you have a list of the materials and instruments that you will need, as well as the function that each object will perform in your weather station.

First of all, we must start by making a wooden box of approximately 50 x 50 x 50 cm, using very firm and fastened boards. The box must allow air to enter and thus be able to carry out the measurements outside that we want, so it is convenient that it be manufactured in such a way that it can receive a certain amount of snow, rain or wind, without ruining the instruments. of measurement that are installed inside.

In addition, the resistance of the box must support the weight of the weather vane, the rain gauge, the anemometer and the barometer, among other measuring instruments, which we will present later.

Barometer

The barometer is the piece in charge of measuring the air pressure. Commonly, barometers are mercury or can be an aneroid barometer. Scientists and meteorologists use the barometer to monitor and control changes in the pressure of the atmosphere, being a traditional way of making a prediction about the forecast.

To build a bottle barometer in your own home, you will need water, a plastic bottle, a plate, and construction paper. The first thing you should do is glue a strip of cardboard vertically. The dish is placed on some surface and water is placed halfway. In turn, ¾ parts of the plastic bottle are filled.

We give the bottle a half turn, taking care to cover the mouth well with the thumb. When the water stays still, you should mark its level on the cardboard. If the pressure goes up, the water level will rise, on the other hand, if the pressure goes down, you will see the water level go down.

Anemometer

This piece is used in conjunction with the weather vane, since the anemometer measures the speed and strength of the wind, while the vane determines the direction. You can make your own anemometer with items that are easy to find at any hardware store.

At home, we can easily make one, using a fixed arm that has three buckets attached and spaced at an angle of 120 degrees to each other. In this way, the action of the wind will move the structure made up of an axis, arms and buckets and, with the help of a stopwatch placed on the base, you will be able to measure the rotation time of the buckets. Knowing this element, you will be able to calculate the speed of the wind.

weather vane

On the other hand, the weather vane has the objective of registering the direction of the wind, using a vane that serves as a guide. This piece starts spinning as soon as the wind starts blowing, showing you which direction the wind is blowing. Also, by using the weather vane at the weather station, your kids will learn which way the wind is blowing.

To make a paper wind vane, you will need a plastic straw, which you will open a slit of approximately 1 cm at each end. Next, cut out a triangle and a square from cardboard, which you will need to insert into the slot of the straw. Take a disposable cup and insert small stones to give it stability, put a well-adhered lid on it and then, with the cup upside down, insert the tip of a pencil, leaving the eraser out.

Put a pin through the straw right in the middle, and lastly, stick the pin into the pencil eraser, so the arrow will be suspended in the air, indicating which way the wind is blowing.

Pluviometer

This is one of the fundamental pieces of any weather station, since no home station would be complete without a rain gauge installed in it. With this instrument, your children will be able to measure everything related to rain and snow, from the amount of water that has fallen in a day, to the accumulation of snow.

The easiest way to make one is to simply place an empty glass outside the station and let it collect the rain or snow itself. Next, place a ruler inside, with which you can measure the amount of precipitation.

air purity meter

To measure the purity of the air we will need an empty can and a coffee filter or white sheet of paper. The filter or paper is used to line the can and it is located in a place outdoors but protected from the rain. After a period of time, we can go back and lower the can to check the state and color of the white material, taking into account that the darker it is, the more polluted the air is.

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