Go to Class!

Here you will find a variety of resources to assist you in making a visit to a local school, day care center, or after school group. Make a difference in the lives of young people by sharing what you do and the excitement of learning about GPM, Earth’s freshwater resources, and the water cycle.

Sections

• Preschool
• Early Childhood Groups (Grades K - 2nd)
• Elementary Students (Grades 3rd- 5th)
• Middle School Students (Grades 6th – 8th)
• High School Students (Grades 9th – 12th)

Preschool GPM Outreach Activities

These are such fun little people with very short attention spans and lots of enthusiasm and questions! They will also want to tell you everything they know and then some, and everyone wants to get a turn to share in. While that is exciting, it can also sidetrack anything you are trying to convey pretty quickly!

Here are some general guidelines for working with this age group:

• A typical presentation to this age group might look something like this:
  • Everyone is sitting on the floor in a circle, and you are sitting on a small chair in front of them. Sometimes they sit on carpet squares or in little chairs.
  • You introduce yourself, or have one of the kids introduce you if they know you are aren’t too shy. A very short introduction your name, the kind of scientist you are, i.e. hydrologist; and what you study, i.e. “weather”.
  • A very short introduction: i.e. “Today I am going to tell you about clouds and how they form. We are also going to learn a little bit about how rain comes down from the clouds. When I am finished, we will do a little handson activity to learn a little more”.
  • You talk for a few minutes, and have a way in which everyone can respond with a hand gesture or by all calling out the answer together, or else you may be stuck hearing about their weekend and their cat and be completely sidetracked if you allow too many openended responding to questions by individual kids.
  • Have a few slides to show, and perhaps even a short video. I will list a few suggestions below which are good for this age level. When you show a slide, get up and interact with the slide pointing things out and maybe even letting them call out the names of things you point to. You might also have them repeat some things you say, such as the parts of the water cycle (only the bare bone basics with these guys: evaporation- condensation-precipitation)
• Length of presentation: Check with their teacher to determine how long your presentation should be. Most likely, it will be under 25 minutes unless you happen to have a hands-on individual activity that they can do themselves after your presentation.

• Content: While there are no formal national science standards for these ages, there are so many great GPM-related topics you can focus on with these little enthusiastic scientists. They are beginning to put things together in their world, and still engage in a lot of “magical thinking”. Your job is to share a story about how something happens; such as why it rains and snows; and then let them take what they already know about clouds and precipitation and try to fit what you are sharing into their existing knowledge base. If possible, you also want to listen to their misconceptions and try to give them a developmentally appropriate new way to understand the processes correctly. Generally, the teacher will be a huge help here, as they are experts at doing this sort of “scaffolding”.

• Here is a sample “lesson” that would be perfect for teaching children in preschool about the water cycle, with an emphasis on rain.
  • After you have done your short introduction, ask the children to give you a thumbs up if they have ever been outside in the rain. Ask them to turn to the person sitting next to them and tell them what they know about rain. After about 45 seconds, ring a soft bell or use a rain stick to get them back to attention.
  • Tell them you heard a lot of great observations being made about rain while they were talking. Ask who can tell you where rain comes from, and call on one or two to share what they know. Help them understand that rain and snow, both called “precipitation”, falls from clouds.
  • You could have a few slides here showing some different types of clouds. Don’t try to tell them the names and have them memorize the kids this is to help them recognize that there are many different shapes of clouds. You might tell them that because there are so many kinds of clouds, scientists use two main characteristics of clouds to help them identify them.  The two types of observations scientists make to identify the kind of cloud are by looking at its shape and its location how high or low in the sky the cloud is. There is a good children’s book which looks at different shapes of clouds called “It Looked Like Spilt Milk” you could read or suggest the teacher read before or after your visit.
  • After you tell them about clouds, then ask them “How do clouds get their water?” and let a few kids give you an answer. Use a slide here of the water cycle or simply hold up the GPM “droplet” and use it to show where we see “evaporation” taking place. I would suggest not handing out droplets to each student yet, as they may be too interested in playing with them to do much else… Give these to the teacher to pass out later. Help them understand that the sun is kind of like the engine that heats the water up, and that when it is warm the water turns into a gas. You could mention steam from a boiling pot of water and the fact that that is still water, just in a different form. Explain that once it is up high in the sky and in the cloud, it has turned back into a liquid again.
  • Explain that clouds don’t float off into space, but stay in Earth’s atmosphere, which is kind of like a blanket around Earth that protects it. When the clouds get too full of water, then we get either rain or snow. Ask them if anyone know why sometimes we get rain and sometimes we get snow see if they understand that when it is really cold, we get snow instead of rain. Tell them we call this stage “precipitation”.
  • They are probably too young to really get into runoff and groundwater, but you could show them this short (1:27) animation with the sound off and go through the stages of the “water cycle” with them as the red drop of water moves through the different stages.
  • Tell them that you work for a NASA satellite called “Global Precipitation Measurement” or “GPM” for short. This is a satellite that was built by hundreds of different people, and it is as big as a fire truck. It was put into the top of a rocket and send into orbit around Earth, and it goes around and around Earth collecting data. Explain that no one is on the satellite, and there are people on Earth who keep track of it using computers. Tell them that this satellite is able to measure how much rain and snow is falling from the clouds all over the world, and every half hour we get new measurements. You can show them the “GPM” sticker they will get, but leave those with the teacher to pass out later.

  • Rain Cloud in a Jar Science Experiment:

    Now you can do a demonstration for the students showing them what it looks like to see the rain passing through the clouds and onto Earth. The directions for this demonstration activity are here.  Show the activity to the teacher ahead of time so s/he can have all the materials ready for you. S/he will know if the students are ready for using the printables or not, and can also have them ready to be used if needed.

  • If the teacher feels the students are able to handle it, they may have some stations where the students can do this in small groups. Perhaps they will add this activity to one of their “stations” for students to do after your visit.

  • If you have time to respond to some questions later, you might ask the children to let their teacher know about any questions they still have and s/he can email them to you to respond to when you get back to work. In that way, they can ask questions if they like, but you want have each of them trying to ask questions and their short attention spans not lasting throughout a question and answer session. Another thing you could do is to walk around as they do this activity in small groups and ask if they have any questions.

 

GPM Activities with Early Childhood Groups (Grades K - 2nd)

Students in K-2^nd grades are eager learners, and will love having a scientist come to visit their class! They can be a talkative bunch and often like to share their experiences and ideas. You might want to look over the suggestions in the document below to get a feel for Best Practices for giving presentations in Elementary Schools.

There are many ways in which the science behind the GPM mission is meaningful and engaging to children in these grade levels. Here are some of the Next Generation Science Standards (followed by most states across the country) that relate directly to some themes you might present on to children in these grades. Note that you aren’t attempting to teach everything in the standards below- rather the information in the standard will give you a sense of what ultimately children in that grade level need to know and do to demonstrate their knowledge. You are just one small step toward helping them achieve these rather broad and complicated standards of science. 

Kindergarten:

• K-ESS2 Earth’s Systems
• K-ESS3 Earth and Human Activity

First Grade:

• 1-LS1 From Molecules to Organisms: Structures and Processes

Second Grade:

• 2-ESS2-1 Earth’s Systems
• 2- LS2 Ecosystems: Interactions, Energy, and Dynamics

The key topic areas that are relevant and related to students in these grade levels center around the water cycle and freshwater availability/resources.  You can find many of the lessons plans and videos we have developed and gathered related to each of these topics below. You might look over these to get some ideas, and could also forward the lists to the teacher to offer them additional resources.

• Earth’s Water Cycle
• Freshwater Availability

I have developed PowerPoint presentations that you might want to use (and feel free to modify) for each of these topics. You can download them for each of these topics below.

• Earth’s Water Cycle
• Freshwater Availability

Here is a really nice and very age-appropriate hand-on and/or demonstration activity you could do in addition or instead of the PPTs if you want to add another dimension!

Rain Cloud in a Jar Science Experiment:

Now you can do a demonstration for the students showing them what it looks like to see the rain passing through the clouds and onto Earth. The directions for this demonstration activity are here.  Show the activity to the teacher ahead of time so s/he can have all the materials ready for you. S/he will know if the students are ready for using the printables or not, and can also have them ready to be used if needed.

If the teacher feels the students are able to handle it, they may have some stations where the students can do this in small groups. Perhaps they will add this activity to one of their “stations” for students to do after your visit.

 

GPM Activities with Elementary Students (Grades 3rd- 5th)

Students in 3^rd through 5^th grades are very interested in hearing about science from “real” scientists! They have begun to learn about natural phenomena all around them, but have many misconceptions as well. At this age, they will often have many questions and also want to share some of their understanding and experiences. Take a few minutes to read over the Best Practices for giving presentations in Elementary Schools to get a feel for what elementary school classes are like and some pointers for presenting to kids in these grade levels.

There are many ways in which the science behind the GPM mission is meaningful and engaging to children in these grade levels. Here are some of the Next Generation Science Standards (followed by most states across the country) that relate directly themes germane to the science and technology behind the GPM mission.  Note that you aren’t attempting to teach everything in the standards below- rather the information in the standard will give you a sense of what ultimately children in that grade level need to know and do to demonstrate their knowledge. You are just one small step toward helping them achieve these rather broad and complicated standards of science.

3^rd grade:

• 3- LSS-4-4   Biological Evolution: Unity and Diversity
• 3- ESS3-1   Earth and Human Activity
• 3- LS4-4  Interdependent Relationships in Ecosystems: Environmental Impacts on Organisms
• 3-5-ETS1   Engineering Design   (related to how GPM measures precipitation)

4^th grade:

• 4- ESS   Earth Systems: Processes that Shape the Earth
• 4- PS3   Energy   (related to how GPM measures precipitation)
• 4- PS4   Waves    (related to how GPM measures precipitation)
• 3-5-ETS1   Engineering Design (related to how GPM measures precipitation)

5^th grade:

• 5- ESS2   Earth’s Systems
• 5- LS2-1   Ecosystems: Interactions, Energy, and Dynamics
• 3-5-ETS1   Engineering Design  (related to how GPM measures precipitation)

The key topic areas that are relevant to GPM and are related to students in these grade levels center around the water cycle and freshwater availability/resources.  You can find many of the lessons plans and videos we have developed and gathered related to each of these topics below. You might look over these to get some ideas, and could also forward the lists to the teacher to offer them additional resources.

• Earth’s Water Cycle
• Freshwater Availability
• GPM Mission Technology

I have developed PowerPoint presentations that you might want to use (and feel free to modify) for each of these topics. You can download them for each of these topics below.

• Earth’s Water Cycle
• Freshwater Availability

If you want to include a hands-on activity, here are a few ideas that are good to do with 3^rd to 5^th grade students.

• Rain Gauge Design Challenge
• Building for Hurricanes: Engineering Design Challenge
• Water Cycle Dice Game

We have some “reading to be informed” articles which you could share with the teacher in case they wanted the students to read this information before or after your classroom visit.

• Water’s Family Tree: Where Did It Come From?
• Earth’s Water Delivery: No Passport Required
• Reading a Rain Gauge
• Precious Freshness
• Examining Precipitation on a Globe of Blue

We also have a longer brochure entitled “Understanding Earth: What’s Up With Precipitation?” which might be useful for the teacher to have access to in order to potentially add more content to your presentation at another time. You could also look over this brochure to get some ideas for information to share with students.

Finally, be sure to add a few slides or spend some time telling the students about why you decided to become a scientist. Share a few things that you were interested in related to science and technology when you were in elementary school. Give a little information about what you do in your job that require strong math, reading, writing, and communication skills.

 

GPM Activities with Middle School Students (Grades 6th – 8th)

Students in middle school are very interested in hearing about science from “real” scientists! Although they have a lot of background knowledge about natural phenomena, they will also have misconceptions as well. They are also at the age in which they will begin to consider their future career interests, and hearing from you about why you chose your career will be very interesting to them. They may be reticent at first to answer questions for fear of “sticking out” among their peers.  Take a few minutes to read over the “Giving Presentations in Secondary Schools” get a feel for what secondary school classes are like and some pointers for presenting to kids in these grade levels.

There are many ways in which the science behind the GPM mission is meaningful and engaging to children in middle school. Here are some of the Next Generation Science Standards (followed by most states across the country) that are germane to themes related to the science and technology behind the GPM mission.  Note that you aren’t attempting to teach everything in the standards below- rather the information in the standard will give you a sense of what ultimately children in middle school need to know and do to demonstrate their knowledge. You are just one small step toward helping them achieve these rather broad and complicated standards of science.

• MS- ESS2   Earth’s Systems
• MS- ESS3   Earth and Human Activity
• MS- LS2   Ecosystems: Interactions, Energy, and Dynamics
• MS- PS4   Waves and their Applications in Technologies for Information Transfer

The key topic areas that are relevant to GPM and are related to students in these grade levels center around the water cycle, freshwater availability/resources, and technology and instrumentation.  You can find many of the lessons plans and videos we have developed and gathered related to each of these topics below. You might look over these to get some ideas, and could also forward the lists to the teacher to offer them additional resources.

• Earth’s Water Cycle
• Freshwater Availability
• GPM Mission Technology

I have developed PowerPoint presentations that you might want to use (and feel free to modify) for each of these topics. You can download them for each of these topics below.

• Freshwater Resources Secondary School PowerPoint
• Earth’s Water Cycle Secondary School PowerPoint

We have some “reading to be informed” articles which you could share with the teacher in case they wanted the students to read this information before or after your classroom visit.

• Water’s Family Tree: Where Did It Come From?
• Earth’s Water Delivery: No Passport Required
• Reading a Rain Gauge
• Precious Freshness
• Examining Precipitation on a Globe of Blue

We also have a longer brochure entitled “Understanding Earth: What’s Up With Precipitation?” which might be useful for the teacher to have access to in order to potentially add more content to your presentation at another time. You could also look over this brochure to get some ideas for information to share with students.

Take a look at our Earth Observations of Water eBook! You might use this instead of a PPT presentation, or in addition to the PPT, to share more in-depth information about how and why we measure precipitation from space.

I would also suggest that you take a look at the Precipitation Measurement Missions webpage to see the current GPM-related activities and animations, as well as the latest IMERG 7-day animation of precipitation data. While showing the IMERG animation, show the animation several times. Ask for a few observations that students can share about what they are seeing. Help them to note the direction of the wind in the upper and lower latitudes as compared to that of the equator. Have them note the keys at the bottom of the screen as well as the dates of the data they are observing. 

If you want to include a hands-on activity, here are a few ideas that are good to do with middle school students.

• Rain Gauge Design Challenge
• Building for Hurricanes: Engineering Design Challenge
• Water Cycle Dice Game
• Looking at Storms in 3D
• GPM Core Observatory Paper Model

Finally, be sure to add a few slides or spend some time telling the students about why you decided to become a scientist. Share a few things that you were interested in related to science and technology when you were in middle school. Give a little information about what you do in your job that require strong math, reading, writing, and communication skills. Tell them a little bit about the college courses you took as well as the research you worked on while you were studying to become a scientist.

Have fun!  Thanks for helping to inspire the next generation!

 

GPM Activities with High School Students (Grades 9th – 12th)

Students in high school are very interested in hearing about science from “real” scientists! Although they have a lot of background knowledge about natural phenomena, they will also have misconceptions as well. They are also at the age in which they will begin to consider their future career interests, and hearing from you about why you chose your career will be very interesting to them. They may be reticent at first to answer questions for fear of “sticking out” among their peers.  Take a few minutes to read over the “Giving Presentations in Secondary Schools” get a feel for what secondary school classes are like and some pointers for presenting to students in these grade levels.

There are many ways in which the science behind the GPM mission is meaningful and engaging to students in high school classes. Here are some of the Next Generation Science Standards (followed by most states across the country) that relate directly themes germane to GPM’s science and technology.  Note that you aren’t attempting to teach everything in the standards below- rather the information in the standard will give you a sense of what ultimately children in that grade level need to know and do to demonstrate their knowledge. You are just one small step toward helping them achieve these rather broad and complicated standards of science.

• HS- ESS2   Earth’s Systems
• HS- ESS3   Earth and Human Activity
• HS- PS4   Waves and their Applications in Technologies for Information Transfer
• HS- ETS1   Engineering Design

The key topic areas that are relevant to GPM and are related to students in these grade levels center around the water cycle and freshwater availability/resources.  You can find many of the lessons plans and videos we have developed and gathered related to each of these topics below. You might look over these to get some ideas, and could also forward the lists to the teacher to offer them additional resources.

• Earth’s Water Cycle
• Freshwater Availability
• GPM Mission Technology

I have developed PowerPoint presentations that you might want to use (and feel free to modify) for each of these topics. You can download them for each of these topics below.

• Freshwater Resources Secondary School PowerPoint
• Earth’s Water Cycle Secondary School PowerPoint

We also have some “reading to be informed” articles which you could share with the teacher in case they wanted the students to read this information before or after your classroom visit.

• Water’s Family Tree: Where Did It Come From?
• Earth’s Water Delivery: No Passport Required
• Reading a Rain Gauge
• Precious Freshness
• Examining Precipitation on a Globe of Blue

We also have a longer brochure entitled “Understanding Earth: What’s Up With Precipitation?” which might be useful for the teacher to have access to in order to potentially add more content to your presentation at another time. You could also look over this brochure to get some ideas for information to share with students.

Take a look at our Earth Observations of Water eBook! You might use this instead of a PPT presentation, or in addition to the PPT, to share more in-depth information about how and why we measure precipitation from space.

I would also suggest that you take a look at the Precipitation Measurement Missions webpage to see the current GPM-related activities and animations, as well as the latest IMERG 7-day animation of precipitation data. While showing the IMERG animation, show the animation several times. Ask for a few observations that students can share about what they are seeing. Help them to note the direction of the wind in the upper and lower latitudes as compared to that of the equator. Have them note the keys at the bottom of the screen as well as the dates of the data they are observing. 

If you want to include a hands-on activity, here are a few ideas that are good to do with high school students.

• Rain Gauge Design Challenge
• Building for Hurricanes: Engineering Design Challenge
• Water Cycle Dice Game
• Looking at Storms in 3D
• GPM Core Observatory Paper Model

Finally, be sure to share information on why you decided to become a scientist. Share a few things that you were interested in related to science and technology when you were in high school. Give some information about what you do in your job that require strong math, reading, writing, and communication skills. Tell them a little bit about the college courses you took as well as the research you worked on while you were studying to become a scientist.  There are more STEM career resources here.

Have fun!  Thanks for helping to inspire the next generation!