Knightly News

While third grade students were in the middle of exploring weather as part of the annual project-based weather lesson, a severe weather event disrupted school. Students’ experiences with Hurricane Ida have made this year’s weather study much more impactful. Before the storm, students learned about weather instruments, types of weather and how clouds form. After the storm, they reported a range of experiences from being scared and hearing thunder to being bored without internet and power. The students are now eager to return to the lesson and learn more.

“They love weather,” says third grade teacher Laura Smith. She says so far students have most enjoyed learning about clouds. A cloud formation experiment in the QUEST Center in Foster Hall helped students understand that clouds are not actually fluffy objects. Smith says the discovery made quite an impression. “Their worlds were rocked when they realized they can’t actually touch a cloud,” she says.

The cloud formation project is just one of many packed into this project-based learning experience. Other hands-on activities include:

• The hurricane tower challenge: students must build a tower out of newspaper and masking tape. Teachers then use a fan and an air cannon to test the tower’s strength.
• Cloud identification: students take photos of clouds outside their classroom. Later they create a short presentation identifying and describing what they discovered.
• Weather walk: students and teachers tour the Episcopal campus making stops at weather-related tools, such as the hygrometer, anemometer and the rain gauge. Did you know the Episcopal library has a weather station that can be accessed by WBRZ to report site-specific weather conditions for a weathercast?

In addition to these exciting weather learning opportunities, students will visit the Louisiana Art & Science Museum and learn more about weather from WAFB’s Dr. Steve Caparotta. As a culminating activity to the weather unit, third graders will create their own weather forecast videos using the green screen in the QUEST Center’s Production Studio. “Students love this opportunity to demonstrate what they have learned about particular weather conditions and patterns,” QUEST Center Coordinator Dr. Elizabeth Lewis. “It is such fun to see the creative elements that students add to their meteorology reports, and they are thrilled when they get to see themselves out in extreme weather.”

While third graders enjoy making weather discoveries, Smith says there’s another reason she likes teaching the annual lesson. “We’re exposed to a lot,” she says. “This makes it not as scary because they know more about it.”

Weather-Related Recovery Efforts

As third graders learn about predicting the weather, the Episcopal community is helping others recover from Hurricane Ida. Episcopal teamed up with the Baton Rouge Deanery of Episcopal Churches and St. Patrick’s Episcopal Church in Zachary to collect supplies for Houma residents still recovering. As is traditionally the case, members of the Episcopal community were extremely generous. All three divisions overflowed with donations that will be delivered to St. Patrick’s for distribution to our neighbors to the south. Thank you to everyone who participated.

The Episcopal School of Baton Rouge 2024-2025 application is now available! ​For more information on the application process, to schedule a tour, or learn more about the private school, contact us at [email protected] or 225-755-2685.