Mapping Microclimates

 Background

Airflow across a landscape is greatly impacted by natural and human-made structures. One of the benefits of offshore wind is the absence of structures to impede or disrupt airflow, leading to greater and more consistent electricity generation. In this activity, you will examine the microclimate around your school building to study how much wind speeds vary in this small area.

 ? Question

How do man-made and naturally-occurring structures affect the speed and direction of wind?

 Hypothesis

Write a statement describing how you think the different shapes, heights, and positions of structures affect wind speed and direction.

Procedure

1. Go to https://www.arcgis.com/index.html, and click “Map.” 2. Click “Basemap” and select “Imagery hybrid.”

3. In the search box, type the address of your school.

5. Use a snipping tool to capture the aerial view of your school, and past it into a slide. 6. Through a class discussion, identify the areas around your school where your class would like to take measurements, and mark those locations on the map with a drawing tool. 7. Check the current conditions at your location to help you make predictions about wind speed variance locally. Go to https://www.weather.gov/gyx/WindSpeedAndDirection and type in the zip code for your location. Record the current wind speed and direction on your map.

8. As a class, decide which teams will assess each location you have decided to measure. Make sure each site is assessed by at least one team, so averages can be calculated. Each team will use an anemometer to gather data and assesses each site. 9. Number the testing locations to facilitate tracking measurements. Your teacher may direct you to record the data on a shared document, or you may be instructed to record the information in the data table. 10. Deploy teams and take measurements. 11. Each team should share their data or enter their data on a shared document. Identify team members if using a shared document. 12. Calculate the average speed for each location. Add the average wind speed for each location to your map.

MICROCLIMATE: WIND STUDY

Testing Site Number Measurement 1 Measurement 2 Measurement 3 Average

10.

11.

12.

13.

14.

15.

Conclusion

1. How did your predictions compare to actual measurements?

2. Are you confident that all of the classes measured values are valid? Why or why not?

3. Are there particular areas around your school that show drastically lower wind speeds compared to those that you found on the

National Weather Service site? IF so, can you identify any features in the landscape that may be related to this reduction in wind speed.

4. We know it is important to have good wind data when making decisions about siting wind turbines. But, can you think of any other reasons why you might want to know about the microclimate around your home? How or why might you want to make changes in your landscape to impact the microclimate?