Science - Wind

Weather and Climate Change 

Extreme weather

Measuring weather.

Wind

Beaufort Wind Scale

Beaufort Force	Wind Speed (KPH)	Spins	Indicators	Terms Used in NWS Forecasts
0	0-2	0	Calm; smoke rises vertically.	Calm
1	2-5	10	Shown by the direction of wind smoke drift, but not by wind vanes.	Light
2	6-12	40	The wind felt on face, leaves rustle; ordinary vanes moved by wind.	Light
3	13-20	80	Leaves and small twigs in constant motion; wind extends light flag.	Gentle
4	21-29	130	Raises dust and lose paper; small branches are moved.	Moderate
5	30-39	190	Small trees in leaf begin to sway; crested wavelets form on inland waters.	Fresh
6	40-50	250	Large branches in motion; whistling heard in telephone wires; umbrellas used with difficulty.	Strong
7	51-61	320	Whole trees in motion; inconvenience felt walking against the wind.	Strong
8	62-74	390	Breaks twigs off trees; generally impedes progress.	Gale
9	75-87	470	Slight structural damage.	Gale
10	88-101	550	Seldom experienced inland; trees uprooted; considerable structural damage occurs.	Whole gale
11	102-116	640	Very rarely experienced inland; accompanied by widespread damage.	Whole gale
12	117 or more	730+	Very rarely experienced; accompanied by widespread damage.	Hurricane

Wind speed - Making an anemometer.

MATERIALS

1.  4 straws
2.  4 disposable/Styraphome cups (or cups you can poke holes through)
3.  A pencil with an eraser on the end
4.  Tape
5.  Pin

STEPS

1.   Get all your materials ready to start creating
2.   Grab two straws and insert one straw into the other creating a long stick and do it to the other two.
3.   Tape both long straws together creating an x or + sign.
4.   Grab a pin and push it through both straws to keep it secure.
5.   Under your cross or plus you will see a bit od the pin poking out grab your pencil and push the eraser bit of the pencil into the pin.
6. Now you have created yourself an Anemometer

Once you have made an anemometer we are going to record the wind speed.

Group size: 5

You will need:

Anemometer (above) 

Roles:

• Timekeeper
• Counter
• Recorder
• Anemometer Manager
• Wind generator

1. Mount the anemometer in a place that has full access to the wind from all directions.
2. When the timekeeper says "Go", the counter in each group will count how many times the marked cup passes them in one minute and write it down.
3. If possible, repeat the above step four (4) times and record the average number of spins on the chart.

FINDINGS

• Record how many times it spins using the table below.

You will need to create the wind yourself by blowing. Get 4 different wind speeds by blowing.

You will need to time them and count the number of spins.

	Time Interval	Number of Spins
1.	10 sec	15
2.	10 sec	14
3.	10 sec	16
4.	10 sec	12

• Can you make a statement connecting the number of spins of your anemometer and the speed of the wind? 

For the first one, we got many spins because we were in front of a wind tunnel once it came out it forced a lot of wind when it came out of the tunnel. For the third one we also got many spins because it was quite a windy day and we faced it the way the wind was coming.

CONCLUSION:

I think it was really fun doing this experiment and making it, I never knew about this stuff and thought it was cool when we had to test the wind we started to develop thinking on how we can get more spins. We also watched a video that surprised us on how tough and strong the wind is in many other countries it was actually surprising. I am really happy we don't have strong winds here in NZ.