Unit 3 · Weather, Water & Climate
Driving question: Why does the sky do what it does? Across five lessons students trace a single winter storm — water evaporates, rises, condenses into clouds, falls as snow, then clears — building one connected model of how energy from the sun moves water and air to make weather.
The lessons
Where does water in the air come from, and where does it go?
A puddle vanishes; your breath fogs on a cold day. Evaporation, the water cycle, and matter conserved.
MS-ESS2-4 Week 2Why does it rain or snow?
Condensation, clouds, and the energy released when vapor becomes water or ice.
MS-ESS2-4 Week 3What makes wind?
Uneven solar heating, air density and pressure differences, convection, and the sea breeze.
MS-ESS2-5 · MS-ESS2-6 Week 4Why does the sky do what it does? Reading the storm
Air masses, fronts, and how moisture + energy + moving air combine to make the anchor storm.
MS-ESS2-5 Week 5 · Performance taskExplain (or forecast) a weather event
Synthesis + summative task: use the connected model to explain a weather scenario, scored with a 3-dimensional rubric.
MS-ESS2-5 (integrating ESS2-4, ESS2-6)