Trailwood Students Deliver Severe Weather Reports

Anyone seeking a severe weather report can find out what they need to know from the Trailwood Thunderbirds.

Recently, second-graders at the school have been reading about and researching severe weather and shared a television-news style weather report to demonstrate what they had learned.

With each report, students included facts about the weather, vocabulary words they recently learned, and safety tips.

With help from fifth-graders, the second-graders filmed their news reports with special effects and props. They used fans, water spray bottles, umbrellas, and noisemakers to give each report a realistic feel.

The fifth-graders also helped add to the realism by adding a green-screen backdrop and filming each report on an iPad. The reports appeared as if they were presented in hurricanes, blizzard conditions, and lightning storms. 

The project gave students multiple opportunities to collaborate. The younger students worked in groups of three, assigning jobs as researchers, writers, and task managers. Then, they worked with fifth-graders to create each video presentation.

“Both groups were thrilled to participate,” second-grade teacher Lisa Buckley said. “Some enjoyed the researching and planning and all enjoyed the presentation part! It was fun to see the leadership skills as they planned.”