1. Clouds and precipitation

2. Clouds form when rising air cools and condenses below its dewpoint.
Water vapor condenses into tiny water droplets or ice crystals
Condensation is the change of phase from gas to liquid

4. In order for gas to condense, it must have a surface to condense on
In order for gas to condense, it must have a surface to condense on. This is called condensation nuclei.
Examples include:
Dust
Smoke
Salt crystals
Ice crystals

5. The cloud base indicates the elevation at which the rising air reached its dew point
Meteorologists call this the ceiling

6. Cloud Types
Clouds are named for their shape and height

7. Cirrus are high level clouds and are wispy.

8. Stratus clouds are low clouds and are sheet-like clouds that cover the entire sky

9. Cumulus clouds are puffy, like cotton

10. Nimbus means rain
So what do you think a cumulonimbus cloud looks like?

12. Let’s play name that cloud!!

16. Water droplets are extremely small
1/50 millimeter
Remain suspended in the air
Therefore, not all clouds produce precipitation

17. Precipitation
Occurs when cloud droplets or ice crystals join together and become heavy enough to fall to the surface
State depends on the air temperature surrounding the falling precipitation

18. Rain
Droplets of water
Cloud droplets come together, or coalesce, when they collide

19. Drizzle Very fine droplets of water falling slowly and close together
Cloud droplets come together, or coalesce, when they collide

20. Sleet Clear pellets of ice
Raindrops freeze as they fall through layers of air at below-freezing temperatures

21. Freezing Rain or Glaze
Rain that is supercooled and will freeze as soon as it hits a surface that is below freezing

22. Snow
Hexagonal crystals of ice, or needlelike crystals at very low temperatures

23. Hail
Balls of ice ranging in size from pea-sized to as large as softball size
Cocentric rings
Formed in thunderstorms

24. Hail
Hailstones are hurled up by updrafts in thunderstorms over and over again
The hailstones fall through layers of the cloud which alternate between above and below freezing
Each cycle adds a layer to the hailstone
The stronger the updrafts, the bigger the hailstone

25. Precipitation Project Overview
You and your group will work to explain the basics of one of the five types of precipitation to the class.
First, a student should complete a 30 second introduction (including the objectives of the lesson “In this movie/lesson you should be able to describe what must happen for ______ to form” and “what controls how _____ reaches the Earth’s surface”). This should also be provided in the lesson plan packet.
The next item is a video (not already produced by someone else; use Powtoon; your phone)/PowerPoint/lesson on the chalk board with pictures on chart paper with a narrator.
The last piece in this lesson plan is to have students assessed on how much they learned from you lesson/video/or Powerpoint. Come up with a three to five question quiz with answer key. Collect and grade the class quizzes.