Meteorologist Kevin Benson provides inspiration for student weather reports

SPRING CHURCH, Pa. — During this project, we were learning about abbreviations in language class, including days of the week, months of the year, time, measurement, temperature, names and titles, roads and states. I wanted to make it more meaningful to them, rather than just the drill and skill practice of flashcards. We discussed the different places we commonly use abbreviations in our daily lives, such as writing an address. After more discussion, my students determined that news reports usually contain all of the different types of abbreviations we've been learning.

Their task was to create a weather report that includes as many abbreviations as they could. I divided my class into four different "news teams," and each were assigned to write about one of the seasons. Through this cooperative learning, all of the groups created a script, using almost all of the different types of abbreviations we learned throughout the week. They also designed a poster resembling the green screens that meteorologists stand in front of during their forecasts. Finally, we filmed all of the forecasts, put them together into one big weather report and sent it off to someone we watched all week for inspiration: Mr. Kevin Benson!

I was so proud of how hard my students worked on this project. They were very enthusiastic and motivated the entire time. They even did exceptional on the language test! Throughout this project, my students achieved several learning objectives such as the PA Common Core Standard CC.1.4.4.F (Informative/Explanatory Conventions of Language) and CC.1.5.4.D (Presentation of Knowledge and Ideas). We also had a great time in the process!

WPXI