Engineering Wind: Making Weather Hands-On in Grade 3

As part of the Grade 3 Weather and Climate unit, the teaching team invited me to their planning meeting to brainstorm ways to make the unit more hands-on. A big focus of this NGSS-aligned science unit is not only collecting data but also planning and carrying out investigations. Together we came up with the idea of having students design and build a simple device to measure wind speed and direction.

The Design ChallengeAfter learning more about how wind works (many students were surprised to discover what actually causes wind), we set the challenge: create a working device that can track both wind speed and direction.

Planning and Building

Students worked in pairs to sketch prototypes, label their drawings, and model their ideas. Once their plans were ready, they began building.

Making their designs

Testing and Iterating

Since we don’t get much natural wind here in Bangkok, we used a large floor fan to simulate it. Students tested their devices against the fan, observed what worked (and what didn’t), and then went back to adjust and improve their designs.

The room was full of energy, collaboration, and problem-solving. What started as a weather unit quickly turned into an authentic design challenge that let students apply their understanding of science in a hands-on way.

Testing their prototypes