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Dust, Dew and a Dry Line at Geology Camp

Grade 6 earth science: a geology camp's weather log and station data show how humid Gulf air and dry desert air met and changed the weather.

Grade 6ScienceInteractive · Printable

Aligned toMS-ESS2-5

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What’s included

Single worksheet
Auto-graded online
1 NGSS standard
Printable answer key
10 questions
Classroom-ready

Details

Format: Interactive · Printable
Grade: Grade 6
Subject: Science
Question types: Fill in the blank, Multiple choice, Sorting, Short answer

About this worksheet

What students practice

Students use dew point, temperature and wind data to tell which air mass was over a place.
Students explain how a boundary between moving air masses led to storms in one place and clear skies in another.

How to use

Go over what dew point means with paragraph 2 before students read the tables; have students mark the boundary on Table 2 before answering questions 5–7.

Curriculum

NGSS standard covered

MS-ESS2-5

Use data on moving air masses to explain how they cause changes in weather.

Preview

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Name Date

Dust, Dew and a Dry Line at Geology Camp

Use dew points and winds to track two air masses meeting over the plains.

The camp weather log

Read the passage and Table 1, then answer questions 1–4.

Two Air Masses Over the Canyon

1Each May, Red Mesa Geology Camp takes middle school students to a canyon in the Texas Panhandle to collect rocks and to look for fossil shells in the canyon walls. The camp and its numbers are made up, but they are based on real spring weather on the southern Great Plains. This year, camper Ximena Rourke volunteered to read the camp's weather station, which records the temperature, the dew point and the direction the wind blows from.

2Camp geologist Dr. Lars Ekwueme explained the dew point. It is the temperature the air would have to cool to before its water vapor starts to condense into droplets. The more water vapor the air holds, the higher its dew point. When the air temperature gets close to the dew point, fog, low clouds or dew can form.

3In spring, two very different air masses often meet over this region. Warm, humid air flows in from the Gulf of Mexico to the southeast. Hot, very dry air flows in from the deserts of the Southwest and northern Mexico. The narrow boundary between them is called a dry line. Where winds from both sides blow toward the boundary, some of the humid air is forced to rise. Rising air cools as it goes up.

4On May 14, Ximena logged the readings in Table 1. The campers spent the afternoon collecting in the canyon under clear skies, while tall storm clouds rose far to the east. At 3 p.m., Dr. Ekwueme looked up readings from three other weather stations on a west–east line through the camp (Table 2).

Table 1. Red Mesa Camp Weather Log, May 14
Time	Temperature (°C)	Dew point (°C)	Wind from	Sky
6 a.m.	18	16	Southeast	Low clouds; dew on rocks
9 a.m.	24	17	Southeast	Clouds breaking up
Noon	29	17	South	Scattered puffy clouds
1 p.m.	32	4	Southwest	Clear; gusty and dusty
3 p.m.	34	2	Southwest	Clear; tall clouds far east
6 p.m.	32	3	Southwest	Clear