Rangi - weather and climate lessons for teachers

Developed for teachers, these lessons offer intermediate age students an engaging and interactive way to learn about Aotearoa’s wild and mild weather and climate patterns.

Rangi is an online weather and climate curriculum for teachers.

The lesson packages were co-developed between NIWA’s climate researchers and meteorologists, and teachers and students from a group of West Auckland intermediate schools. Rangi (meaning weather or sky in te reo Māori) is designed to offer intermediate age students an engaging and interactive way to learn about Aotearoa’s weather and climate, inspiring children to consider a future career in a STEM-related field. Rangi is supported by MBIE’s Unlocking Curious Minds contestable fund.

Each lesson contains a teaching resource package with theory, videos, activities, experiments and quizzes.

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    Lesson 1: An introduction to weather and meteorology

    Education Resource
    Is today sunny, cloudy, windy, rainy, or stormy? All of those things are part of the weather...

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    Lesson 2: Wind

    Education Resource
    Sometimes wind can feel like a bit of a mystery because we can feel it, but not see it.

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    Lesson 3: Weather forecasting

    Education Resource
    Forecasting future weather starts by knowing what the weather is doing right now – everywhere in the world!

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    Lesson 4: Severe weather

    Education Resource
    Once in a while the weather becomes much more dangerous – what meteorologists call severe weather.

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    Lesson 5: Introduction to climate

    Education Resource
    Weather tells you what to wear each day, while climate tells you what types of clothes to have in your closet.

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    Lesson 6: Climate drivers

    Education Resource
    Have you ever wondered what makes the climate during one season more extreme than another?

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    Lesson 7: Climate in Aotearoa

    Education Resource
    The climate of New Zealand is incredibly varied for a country of its size.

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    Lesson 8: Climate and weather extremes

    Education Resource
    New Zealand’s climate can be defined as ‘temperate’. However, every so often we experience extremes.

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    Lesson 9: Ngā Tohu o te Taiao – Māori environmental indicators

    Education Resource
    This lesson will explore the use of Māori environmental indicators [tohu] to anticipate local weather and climate conditions.

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    Lesson 10: Our planet is warming

    Education Resource
    When we talk about the future, we often talk about climate change.

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    Lesson 11: Understanding past climate can help predict the future

    Education Resource
    If we can understand how the Earth’s climate has changed in the past, we can use that information to understand how it might change in the future.

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    Lesson 12: Computing the climate

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    We can explore how the world may change due to climate change by creating climate models.