When it comes to hands-on learning, kids of all ages absolutely love STEM activities where they get to engineer and then use the item.
This spring we have been studying the weather each day. The kids had tons of fun with this make your own wind anemometer activity.
Last week we had tons of fun studying clouds.
Be sure to check out how we made a cloud in a jar and our super simple rain cloud activity.
This week we continued the weather unit activities by studying the wind and this DIY Wind Meter was perfect!
Making a Wind Anemometer (DIY Wind Meter)
- 4 paper cups
- 2 corrugated cardboard strips (1.5 inches by 12 inches)
- Thumbtack
- Paintbrush
- Pen that is able to be taken apart
- Clay
Glue your 2 pieces of cardboard together as seen in the picture below.
Once the glue is dried, staple each of the paper cups to the ends of the cardboard cross. Make sure the cups all face the same direction! (Hint: We used 1 cup of a different color to make it easier to count spins. You could also use brightly colored tape on one cup to make it stand out.)
To make the part that our anemometer will spin on, I took apart an old pen. The empty pen case fits nicely over the end of the paint brush, with enough room to spin when the wind blows.
Next, use the thumbtack to fasten the cardboard cross to the end of the pen case. Make sure the thumbtack is as close to the center of the cardboard as possible!
We used a can of Play-Doh to hold our wind meter up. You could also use a lump of clay.
Once your DIY wind anemometer is built, you can take it outside to measure the wind.
We set ours up on the picnic table.
To measure the wind speed, set a timer for 1 minute and count how many times the cups spin around in that minute. (That’s where the different colored cup really comes in handy!)
We have been having fun using our homemade wind meter to compare the wind speeds each day this week for our weather unit.
More hands-on learning activities:
Get more fun ideas like this delivered to your email by subscribing to our newsletter.
Eva says
April 26, 2015 at 11:55 amWe are in the middle of our Weather Unit. This looks like fun. We will give it a try.