Weather on the Move Workshops for Students
Learning Activity 3: Dancing Winds

Summary: 
This lesson introduces the expanding and condensing properties of air masses and the unequal heating of the earth as the force behind the wind. Working with principles of choreography, participants use movement skills to learn and communicate information about the structure and attributes of the atmosphere.

Objectives
Students will:
  • Create meaning and relationships with body movement, shapes and placement. 
  • Relate movement to rising heating air and sinking cooling air. 
  • Create a movement motif that demonstrates the movement characteristics of air masses and the wind. 
  • Create variations on a movement motif. 

Next Generation Science Standards
  • 5-ESS2-1. Develop a model using an example to describe ways the geosphere, biosphere, hydrosphere, and/or atmosphere interact.
  • 4-ESS2-2. Analyze and interpret data from maps to describe patterns of Earth’s features.

National Core Dance Standards
  • Anchor Standard 8: Interpret intent and meaning in artistic work. Interpret meaning in a dance based on its movements. Explain how the movements communicate the main idea of the dance using basic dance terminology.
  • Anchor Standard 10: Synthesize and relate knowledge and personal experiences to make art. Create a dance study that expresses the idea. Explain how the dance study expressed the idea

Common Core State Standards 
  • ELA/Literacy – RI.5.7 Draw on information from multiple print or digital sources, demonstrating the ability to locate an answer to a question quickly or to solve a problem efficiently. 
  • W.5.8 Recall relevant information from experiences or gather relevant information from print and digital sources; summarize or paraphrase information in notes and finished work, and provide a list of sources. 


Go to Learning Activity 1: Spheres' Density Dance 
Go to Learning Activity 2: Kaleidoscopic Cloud Dance

Fluffy summer clouds 
march
in the blue sky.

from Cloud Dance
Thomas Locker
Veils of mist
rise
in warm sunlight.

from Cloud Dance
Thomas Locker
Copyright S. Harlan Brownlee: No copying or other reproduction of this work allowed without the express written permission of the author, ©2014.
Clouds of many shapes 
and sizes drift and dance across
the sky.

from Cloud Dance
Thomas Locker