Weather
The rain and winds that
surround us are an integral part of our environment, so it is an important
aspect of creation about which we need to teach children. Weather regulates temperatures, provides
rain, and sometimes becomes destructive.
Begin with a simple lesson
about the water cycle. Set up a slalom
course with cones unless you can find a convenient circular trail to play
on. Have different parts of the course
labeled as different phases of the water cycle.
All of the campers start in the ocean, where you, representing the sun,
give them the cue to evaporate and enter the cycle. With that cue, the campers run around the
course (preferably) up hill until they enter the atmosphere. In the atmosphere, each water molecule must
find four other partners before it can form a drop of rain and fall back to
earth. Once the campers are "back
to earth," they must weave their way through streams and rivers before
returning to the ocean where the whole process begins again.
If you happen to be near a
stream, dump a small cup of water into the stream and ask the campers where
that water will end up. Make the campers
name all the creeks and streams of the area until finally they can conclude
that the water ends up in the oceans.
When you ask about the next step, the campers should already know that
in the ocean the process starts over once
again. Remind campers that evaporation
occurs every where there is water, but the ocean offers the greatest surface
area for large amounts of evaporation.
Add various other modeling
games to the weather activity as time allows.
For instance, you could have the children model a hurricane, complete
with an eye to the storm. Let the
children start spinning, and then you play an unfortunate town that is attacked
by the storm. Or play out the opposite
charges that attract each other to form lightning, and the vacuum which air
quickly fills to form thunder.
Another good game related to
weather is a global warming activity.
Start the activity with two lines spaced about fifty feet apart. Choose one person to represent green house
gases who tries to tag the other players (representing heat) as they run from
one side to another. As the players are
tagged, they become green house gases and can move around trying to capture
heat. Point out, as the game progresses,
that heat gets captured much more easily with more green
house gases in the atmosphere. The
presence of some greenhouse gases is necessary for life on earth because we
need the heat, but too many greenhouse gases quickly throws
the climate out of its normal pattern.
Briefly discuss the weather
and how it is much like God. Like God,
weather can be unpredictable, but at the same time nourishing for the entire
earth. More specifically, the Bible
compares rain with God's word: "For as the rain and snow come down from
heaven, and do not return there until they have watered the earth, making it
bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and
bread to the eater, so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall
return to me empty, but it shall
accomplish that which I purpose, and succeed in the thing for which I sent
it" (Isaiah 55.11-12). The Bible
thus suggests the water cycle that the campers just learned about, but ties it
to God's Word which also goes out into the world.