Weather or Climate?: Poems & Plays about Weather & Climate

by Brod Bagert, Natalia King (Illustrator)

Overview

Weather or Climate?
Entertaining, Instructional, and Comprehensive

Weather or climate? Climate or weather?
Not quite the same but so close together.
Climate or weather? Weather or climate?
The difference is simply the way that you time it.

from "Whether It's Weather"

Grounded in the principle that children remember "90% of what they do in dramatic presentation," Weather or Climate? is the fourth book in the Brod Bagert's HeART of Science series--a comprehensive collection of dramatic content literature.

This poignant yet comical collection of dramatic poems, monologues, and short plays stimulates powerful insights into the mechanisms of everyday weather and the realities of long-term climate.

At the outset, the Sun, too busy to appear in person, submits an affidavit in which he declares himself the BOSS--"I expand the gases of your atmosphere and make the wind. I transform water from liquid to gas as the engine of your water cycle. I drive the currents of your oceans."

There's an understandably anxious electron who narrates her journey from part of an H₂O molecule in a cumulonimbus ice crystal, to part of a "swarm" of free electrons that eventually form themselves into a lightning strike.

There's a clap-along chant that visits each step of the water cycle and ends with the memory anchoring "ACCUMULATION! EVAPORATION! CONDENSATION! PRECIPITATION! H₂O! H₂O! H₂O! GETS NO VACATION!"

With scientific accuracy and knee-slapping fun, Weather or Climate? transforms the detachment of theoretical concepts into the immediacy of imagined personal experience. The journey concludes with the voice of a person determined to accept responsibility for the future because "... planet Earth's my home. I like it here a lot. Perfect? Not at all. But it's the only home I've got."

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781732151543
Publisher:	Living Road Press, LLC
Publication date:	06/29/2019
Series:	Brod Bagert's Heart of Science , #4
Edition description:	4th ed.
Pages:	50
Product dimensions:	8.50(w) x 11.00(h) x 0.13(d)
Age Range:	5 - 12 Years

About the Author

Poet Brod Bagert is the author of over eighteen books of poetry for children, young adults, and adults. A former lawyer and New Orleans City Councilman, Bagert penned his first poem as a favor to his daughter, who needed a poem to recite in a school program. Bagert realized that few poems written in children's voices were available, and so wrote one himself. Since then, he has helped change children's poetry in America, focusing on performance as well as the poem itself. According to Timothy Rasinski, a literacy instructor at Kent State University, Bagert's poems allow children to "create art" when they perform them. "Since he is one of the few poets to truly write in the voice of a child, it's easy for students to use his material for expressiveness," Rasinski told the New Orleans Times Picayune in a feature on Bagert. The Picayune noted that part of Bagert's appeal to children was his ability to capture their swirling moods and emotions: "Bagert's verses often feature the private emotions-raw, complex, humorous-of youthful characters he created."

Table of Contents

Whether It’s Weather The distinction between climate and weather

Chariot of Fire Sun as the source of all weather

Dangerous Planet Five major kinds of storms

Need to Know The importance of weather forecasting

Measure the Weather The instruments of weather forecasting

Taking Turns Seasons and the angle of Earth’s axial tilt

The Angle of Our Seasons easons, axial tilt, solstice, equinox, constellations of the zodiac

Only One Snowflake formation

The Puddle Bandit Evaporation, phase change

No Vacation The water cycle: accumulation, evaporation, condensation, precipitation

A Problem with the Water Cycle Evaporation and the durability of water molecules

My Favorite Cloud Cloud formation

Flying Water Clouds, cirrus, cumulus, stratus, nimbus

What Am I? A cloud that’s scared to fly

Ups and Downs of Wind Air temperature, high and low pressure, wind, Coriolis effect

Warm-Up-Low, Cool-Down-High Air temperature, density, high and low pressure

Kaboom Lightning, charged particles, charged leaders, H₂O, and O₃

All in the Family Function and composition of Earth’s atmosphere, climate change

Greenhouse Gas Chamber Climate change, greenhouse gases

In My Hands Climate change, decision imperative

An Invitation to You

Editorial Reviews

“Since he is one of the few poets to (truly) write in the

voice of a child, it’s easy for (students) to use his material for

expressiveness,” Rasinski told the New Orleans Times

Picayune in a feature on Bagert. The Picayune noted that part

of Bagert’s appeal to children was his ability to capture their

swirling moods and emotions: “Bagert’s verses often feature the

private emotions—raw, complex, humorous—of youthful

characters he created,” the article’s author, Ramon Antonio

Vargas, noted.

From the Publisher