Introduction
You are a student intern with the National Weather Service (NWS). You have been hired to consult with a Dynamic Inc, an international company that wants to build a U.S. headquarters.
This company is aware of the different weather patterns and conditions and wishes to hire you as a consultant to help them decide on where to build.
Floods, Tornadoes, Hurricanes and Earthquakes are major weather or natural events that need to be considered and right now they are looking in 4 states: New York, Texas, Florida, and South Carolina.
The company needs your help in deciding which state they should consider where in the event of an extreme weather event they would sustain the least damage, least cost, be the best prepared for, and have the most resilience (be able to "bounce back").
I need you to determine which state will be the best state for my company.
Process
Your job, as a group, is to determine which type of severe weather will cause the least amount of damage, cost Dynamic Inc. the least amount of money, and can most easily be prepared for. Each member of your group will research a different type of severe weather. You will each complete your severe weather research organizer in order to help your group determine which state you will recommend as the site for this new company. You must include EVIDENCE to support your decision and therefore must use the research organizer.
A pdf copy of these instructions will be provided to all group members.
1. You will all be assigned a group "Think Tank" to include members who each have a different extreme weather pattern or event.
2. Each group member will become an expert on one type of severe weather. You will be grouped with other members who have the same event.
Your job is to find out what your type of weather is and how it is formed, how much damage it does and costs, safety precautions to take, trends/patterns and the biggest recorded storm of that nature in the given state.
Extreme Weather/Disaster Events:
-
Florida – Hurricanes
Texas – Tornados
New Jersey – Floods
California – Earthquakes
3. Be sure that you have the severe weather research guide for the type of weather that you are becoming an expert on.
4. Now you are ready to research!
Here are some links to help you along in addition to information you have in your notes and on Discovery Ed.
Trends in specific Extreme Weather Events
National Weather Forecast Maps
5. Now that you have become an expert on your weather condition, you need to share this information with the members of your "Think Tank" group. After sharing, your group must decide which state would be best for my company. Please take into consideration that I am looking for a place where the weather does the least amount of damage and I can prepare for it with safety precautions.
Florida – Hurricanes
Texas – Tornados
New Jersey – Floods
California – Earthquakes
Now that you have decided, you must design a story board on Discovery Ed to present to the company. Your board should CONVINCE me through EVIDENCE you researched that I should build my headquarters in the state you selected.
The Board must include ALL group members names. When you are done, you MUST SHARE your board with your TEACHER AND your GROUP MEMBERS. This is the only way I can see your board to grade it.
- The state of choice
- What is the typical extreme weather or event?
- For the weather event: The typical amount of damage and cost, safety precautions, and biggest recorded event in that state.
- You should note patterns/trends in past occurences to include the locations, magnitudes, and frequencies of these natural hazards.
- Remember to include pictures that you can ANALYZE and EXPLAIN
- Weather maps
- Charts
- Images
- Do your best work because it will be graded.FOLLOW Directions and the RUBRIC
- You will also receive a group grade based on how well your group works together in addition to a score for your effort as an individual contributor.
Evaluation
There is a copy of the group rubric on the back of your research page.
This will be used to determine one part of the grade that you receive for this project. As you begin working on your poster, your group will receive a poster rubric.
This will determine the other part of your grade for this project.
Conclusion
Thank you for your help in advising my company in choosing our location. I look forward to working with you again in the future!
Credits
adapted from Mrs. Peterson's webquest