An Acclaimed Resource for Teachers

Welcome to the world of wild weather and the people who study it up close-real close. As you watch STORMCHASERS on the IMAX®/IMAXDome big screen, you will feel truly wind-whipped and rain-soaked. Your journey will take you into some of the most breathtaking storms on earth, with scientists who are collecting data to help them understand and predict those changes in the earth's atmosphere that we know as weather.

Do What Scientists Do

In the film, you will meet meteorologists in action: questioning, probing, analyzing, and predicting. This is the scientific method at work. The STORMCHASERS Activity Guide is designed to take students in grades four through eight through the same adventures of asking questions, making observations, collecting data, and interpreting the results. The activities cover the basic principles of meteorology, and are organized around the three dramatic weather events featured in the film: monsoons, hurricanes, and tornadoes.

Projects allow teachers and students to:

brew a mini tornado in a bottle or in the classroom
track the seasons
create a barometer
study cloud formation and classification
make a hair hygrometer (humidity gauge)
simulate global wind patterns
track Hurricane Emily
demonstrate the Doppler effect
chase a tornado...

... and more, all using such easy-to-find supplies as balloons, newspapers, drinking straws, flashlights, food coloring, and ping-pong balls!

As your students work through these activities, they will learn weather concepts that scientists in the film are using. Several of the projects deal with the actual events featured in the film, and serve as excellent background to the real-life drama faced by the stormchasers. You can use this guide to prepare your class to see the film, explore the experience afterwards, or both. The activities are open-ended, and can involve a few class periods or many days of in-depth investigations.

The illustrated guide also provides resources such as:

weather-related books
magazines
experiment publications
educational software
international groups to join
on-line services
videos

The Guide is available to educators everywhere.

To order, contact your local museum showing Stormchasers, or MacGillivray Freeman:

MacGillivray Freeman Films Distribution Company
P.O. Box 205
Laguna Beach, CA 92652
tel (714) 494-1055
fax (714) 494-2079