Winter Weather Teaching Box
Winter weather may cancel school, but it’s also an opportunity to learn science. This teaching box is filled with hands-on activities that get primary grade students to learn the science of winter weather including concepts of earth science. Explore the educational resources in this teaching box and bring snow and ice into your classroom!
The UCAR Center for Science Education Teaching Boxes are themed collections of classroom-ready educational resources to build student understanding of science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM). Resources highlighted within teaching boxes are from various science education programs and all have been vetted by our education team.
- Topic: Winter Weather
- Level: Primary grades (K-2)
Keeping warm
Goal: Students learn how people and wildlife keep warm during cold winter weather.
Activity: Students explore how people dress for cold and how wildlife is adapted to keep warm during winter.
Snowflake Shapes
Goal: Students learn that snowflakes come in different shapes.
Activity: Students investigate the shapes of snowflakes.
Colors of Snow
Goal: Students learn that snow can be various shades, but is usually light in color, which reflects most of the sunlight that hits it unlike darker materials.
Activity: Students explore the colors of snow as represented by artists, explore how different colors absorb and reflect sunlight, and predict what would happen if snow and ice were covered by a layer of dark soot or dirt.
Water and Ice
Goal: Students learn that water can be a solid or a liquid depending on temperature.
Activity: Students read the book A Snowy Day, by Ezra Jack Keats, experiment with water and ice, and consider where ice and snow is found on Earth.