Students investigate why hail, rain, or snow falls heavily at some times but not others by comparing hail videos from different cities and modeling thermal energy, particle motion, changes of state, the water cycle, air masses, and atmospheric circulation. Teams apply evidence to build and revise a three-dimensional display tracing cloud formation, hail production, storm paths across the country, and contrasting South American climates. Gallery walks and daily individual progress trackers help students document discoveries, assess understanding, and improve scientific accuracy and clarity. With feedback from university earth or atmospheric scientists, students present interactive displays at a Sky Science Museum Night for families, staff, and guest scientists.

Students will model how solar energy, gravity, and changes in particle motion, temperature, and state cycle water through Earth’s systems and produce clouds, rain, snow, and hail. They will analyze weather data to explain how interacting air masses move storms across the country and model how unequal heating and Earth’s rotation shape atmospheric and oceanic circulation and regional climates. Teams will apply this evidence to build and revise a three-dimensional weather-system display, using feedback from gallery walks and university experts to improve scientific accuracy and clarity. Students will communicate their explanations at Sky Science Museum Night and update individual progress trackers after every lesson to document new understandings, feedback, and next steps.

Students will create individual progress trackers, updated after every lesson with evidence-based big ideas about the essential question. Teams will develop and revise models of hail formation, cloud formation, storm paths, water cycling, particle motion and state changes, and atmospheric circulation, using gallery-walk feedback and input from university experts. Their final product will be a three-dimensional weather-system display tracing water cycling, cloud formation, hail production, and storm movement across the country, with a regional climate connection to South America. Teams will present interactive versions of their displays at Sky Science Museum Night for families, staff, and guest scientists.

Show short videos of hailstorms in several cities with different surface temperatures, locations, and storm paths, then ask students to record what they notice and wonder. Teams use weather maps and particle diagrams to propose how water entered the air, froze, and fell as hail on a warm day, then compare explanations in a gallery walk focused on accuracy and clarity. A university atmospheric scientist responds to student questions and introduces the challenge of tracing water cycling, cloud formation, precipitation, and storm movement in a three-dimensional model. Close by introducing the essential question and Sky Science Museum Night, then have students update individual progress trackers with their first big ideas and remaining questions.

Host a Sky Science Museum Night where teams guide families, staff, and guest scientists through interactive three-dimensional weather-system displays. Students use their models and supporting data to explain water cycling, cloud formation, hail production, storm paths, and contrasting South American climates. Visitors test model features, ask questions, and leave feedback on scientific accuracy and clarity, while university atmospheric science partners facilitate a student Q&A. Afterward, students reflect on audience feedback and update individual progress trackers with the big ideas they can now explain.