5 Effective Ways to Use a Weather and Climate Review 

Are Your Students Retaining What They Learn? Your weather and climate review can sometimes feel repetitive— and frankly, a let-down after the possibly fun and interactive lessons on weather you’ve taught. Instead of handing out another review worksheet, why not engage your students with higher-level thinking questions that help them retain information?

You can combine higher-level questions with fun teaching strategies to make your class weather and climate review more engaging, effective, and interactive. I’ve got five simple ideas you can put together with little prep (especially if you want to grab my ready-to-go Higher Level Weather Questions: Task Cards, Fan Strips, and Journal Prompts):

 1. Use Question Strips as Exit Tickets

Exit tickets can be a quick and easy way to check student understanding, but there are many creative ways to implement informal assessment at the end of a lesson. Taking them even a step further and including some collaborative learning strategies is proven more effective for your student’s mastery of concepts (Erken & Bodemer, 2019). Print off enough questions for your students to have related questions about concepts you’ve covered. A simple way to do this looks like the following:

Cut questions into strips and before students leave class, have them:

• Pick a question strip and write their response.
• Pair up and discuss their answer before turning it in.
• You could optionally have them reflect in their science journal by writing their response and possibly drawing a diagram if needed.

Use just a handful of questions students get to pick from randomly. Afterward, you can look for common mistakes in student responses to guide your next lesson! This is also effective if you use a digital form to submit your answers. I love using this for my weather and climate review.

2. Turn Science Task Cards into a Game

Task cards with a variety of questions are simple and perfect for weather and climate review stations, but why not make it even more fun? Take your weather and climate review a step further with these ideas:

• Scoot Game: Place task cards around the room and have students move from card to card, writing their answers in a journal. You could have them use paper strips for their answers and have a box they put them into at each station. Then, you could review and address any common misconceptions as a class. 
• Partner Challenge: Students take turns reading a card aloud and answering. Their partner provides feedback before moving to the next one. (You could even have them debate their answers if they disagree).
• Task Card Challenge – Have students, in either pairs or teams, draw a question card and answer it. They earn a point if they answer correctly (with an explanation)! If they don’t fully answer it or miss the mark, it becomes an excellent opportunity to support student learning as they might not be the only student(s) struggling with a concept.

3. Create a Weather and Climate Review Discussion Wall

Okay, this is a fun way to have a weather and climate review! This can become a routine with different topics or subjects throughout the school year. Because science isn’t just about knowing facts, it’s about explaining and applying knowledge. Creating a discussion wall is the perfect way for students to explain their thinking to others, comment on other ideas, and learn collaboratively.

To create a review discussion wall:

• Each day, post a question covering previously learned topics, or what you will go over that day, on the board.
• Have students write their responses on sticky notes and add them to a class discussion wall (they could put their names or class numbers on the sticky side to keep it primarily anonymous during the day. Alternatively, you could have laminated cards with Velcro on the back that you can reuse repeatedly.
• End the day with a class discussion about different responses. This can be a great way to address misconceptions as a whole class!

4. Build a Weather and Climate Review Journal Over Time

Instead of cramming all your weather and climate review at the end, spread it out over the unit with a science journal! This is especially effective if you keep a weather log, a daily science journal, or some other journal or multi-day recording activity. It becomes a part of the routine and gives students the opportunity to reflect and apply what they’ve been learning. 

• Use the journal question strips for daily reflection.
• Have students compare their earlier responses to later ones to see how their understanding grows.
• Assign higher-order questions from the set for students to apply what they’ve learned.

This also makes an amazing reference tool for future science units, or for preparing for a test.

5. Make Review Simple In Centers

You can use science centers or even take one of these ideas and combine it with a literacy center if you don’t have a lot of science time to turn your weather and climate review into a simple experience!

• Station 1: Have students draw a random question strip and discuss their response with a partner.
• Station 2: Use question prompts for independent written reflection. (An excellent writing or literacy center option if you have limited time for science).
• Station 3: Record students giving verbal responses to open-ended questions to check their thinking.
• Station 4: Play a task card challenge game to reinforce key ideas.

Final Thoughts: Review Can Be Engaging AND Effective!

The best way to really know if your students understand weather & climate is to give them opportunities to explain, analyze, and apply what they’ve learned. Open-ended questions are a simple, powerful way to do just that.

By using exit tickets, games, discussion walls, science journals, and interactive centers, you can make your weather and climate review more engaging and effective.

Need a time-saving solution for your weather and climate review? If you want a ready-made set of High-level questions in different formats (journal prompts, task cards, and question strips), Grab the Weather & Climate Science Questions set today!