Hurricanes

Students will use the Internet to learn about how hurricanes form. After discussing how and where hurricanes form, they will gather and record some hurricane data in spreadsheets to make graphs, and then analyze the data. Students will make some predictions about the current hurricane season.

Hurricane Information Resources:

• How a Hurricane Works
• A Typical Northern Hemisphere Hurricane
• Hurricane History
• The Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Scale
• Hurricane Safety
• Put on your 3-D glasses and view Hurricane Andrew in 3-D!

Some Ideas for Collecting Data:

• Number of hurricanes by category for particular years and/or states
• Number of storms by decades
• Costliest Hurricanes
• Deadliest Hurricanes
• Strongest Hurricanes
• Number of tropical storms vs. number of hurricanes in a season

Evaluation:

Students will work in pairs to complete a spreadsheet and graph that contains the following:

• Title
• Spreadsheet with appropriate data
• Bar, line, or pie graph as appropriate
• Source of data cited correctly
• A written analysis of what their data shows