In this performance task, students study real NOAA weather data on severe hailstorms in order to make a forecast about future hailstorm events.

If you have time to extend the performance task, we recommend having your students create a poster showcasing what they've done in this Anchor Layer. The poster can be broken into three sections: an explanation of how hailstorms happen during warm weather, a description of their design for something that will protect cars and trucks from hailstorm damage, and a forecast of when and where that device is most likely to be needed.

Plan Ahead

We recommend having students work in groups of between two and four. If students worked in groups to design something that will protect cars and trucks from hail damage after Mystery 4, they can continue to work in those same groups for this activity.

If students work in a group of four, each student will be responsible for data from a single season. If groups have fewer than four students, each student may need to study data from more than one season. This will likely increase the length of the activity, so plan accordingly.