THE WEATHER AS NATURE-STUDY 



By IOHN DEARNESS, Normal School London, Canada 



It is difficult to name a subject better suited to heuristic 

 study than weather. In the latitudes of nearly the whole extent 

 of the United States and the settled parts of Canada there is a 

 constant easterly procession of pressure waves modified by 

 various and continually varying local influences affording oppor- 

 tunity for observation and comparison of daily, sometimes 

 hourly, changes in the motion, temperature, density and humidity 

 of the atmosphere. 



Most subjects have their appropriate seasons — some are best 

 studied in winter, others should be taken in summer — but 

 weather is always with us. Some topics require material that 

 can be obtained only in the city, others what is easily accessible 

 only in the country, but weather is everywhere. Some lessons 

 have to be taught by observation in the narrower sense of the 

 term, others by experiment, but weather lessons lend themselves 

 to treatment by both methods. Certain nature studies are selected 

 on account of their training value, others because they are 

 strictly utilitarian ; weather study admirably exercises the observ- 

 ing and reasoning powers, and skill in predicting changes will 

 often prove highly useful. Whenever two or three are gathered 

 together, though they discuss nothing else they comment upon the 

 weather. Who is too young, when is one too old, to take an 

 interest in rain and shine, in heat and frost, in storm and rain- 

 bow? No grade in school is too young to observe certain phe- 

 nomena of wind, temperature and cloudiness ; and no grade too 

 advanced to profit by examination of the train of causes and 

 effects exhibited in any week of changeful weather. The subject 

 can be studied by the nature method indoors or outdoors, at 

 school or at home, with or without scientific apparatus. In short, 

 it is suited to all classes, all seasons, all places. 



It is needless to say that there are different ways in which 

 weather as a subject of study may be treated. A convenient 

 one. even though the regular time for nature-study be, say, the 

 last half-hour of the forenoon, is to require the observations to 

 be made during the morning walk to the schoolroom and the 

 reasoning and expression to be done in the first few minutes after 

 the opening exercises. The last two, or all the stages, may be 

 assigned to individuals or groups of pupils in turn, or all the class 

 may observe and report for a fortnight or longer and again 



