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To introduce students to ideas about wind and wind speed, they first
need to understand that air can move from one place to another. It is
easy to see this close up - just fanning the face, for example. Because
air is invisible, getting some measure of wind speed is more complex.
You can time a person running, or read the speedometer of a car moving
along a highway, but measuring wind speed requires some methods that are
less familiar. For the purposes of formal weather forecasting, wind speed
is measured using an anemometer (see below). The wind pushes the cups
in a circle, and the number of turns corresponds to the wind speed.
One way to measure wind speed is by observing its effects on objects.
In 1805, a British naval officer named Sir Francis Beaufort developed
a wind speed scale that refers to the movement of objects. The Beaufort
Scale is a good way to introduce your students to the concept of wind
speed. You may want to show students pictures of the instruments used
by professional meteorologists as they collect weather data.
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© NOAA
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Home-made anemometer
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Commercial anemometer
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Ask your students to recall how they found that air is a material that
fills the spaces around us. Remind them that they saw how the air supported
objects like small paper planes and how air filled a soft balloon, making
it expand and grow harder to the touch.
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