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Ellis Abel Learns.

In my own words · Winter Haven, FL

Why I love weather

Hurricane Juliette photographed from the Terra satellite as a huge white spiral of cloud with a clear eye at its centre. Real NASA photograph used on the Ellis Abel Learns "Why I Love Weather" page — read by families in Winter Haven, FL.
Hurricane Juliette photographed from the Terra satellite as a huge white spiral of cloud with a clear eye at its centre. NASA/JPL-Caltech · Public domain
  • It is different tomorrow and someone can tell me why.
  • The sky is doing something I can measure.
  • A guess with a reason is called a forecast.

You can love weather in Winter Haven.

What it really is

Weather is the atmosphere moving heat and water around, and it can be measured.

Three things to try today

  1. Write down tomorrow's temperature guess tonight.
  2. Check it tomorrow.
  3. Do it for a week and count how often you were close.
NASA meteorologists release a white weather balloon into the sky to check conditions before a research flight. Real NASA photograph used on the Ellis Abel Learns "Why I Love Weather" page — read by families in Winter Haven, FL.
NASA meteorologists release a white weather balloon into the sky to check conditions before a research flight. NASA · Public domain

For the grown-up reading this

This page is written to the child, not about them. If a kid in Winter Haven, FL loves weather, here is the grown-up version of what they already feel. Winter Haven is one of the cities the Lakeland–Winter Haven, FL metro area is officially named after.

Keeping score on your own forecasts is real practice in probabilistic thinking.

If the kid who loves this is a girl

Read what one popular teacher said to one little girl who took out the classroom trash without being asked — and what that girl did with the rest of her life.

Girls are great at math — Winter Haven, FL →

Love something else too

The branching channels of the Godavari River delta meeting the Bay of Bengal, photographed by the crew of space shuttle Endeavour. Real NASA photograph used on the Ellis Abel Learns "Why I Love Rivers" page — read by families in Winter Haven, FL.Why I love riversThe dark ragged skyline of a Douglas fir forest at Point Reyes, California, silhouetted against a pale grey sky. Real USGS photograph used on the Ellis Abel Learns "Why I Love Forests" page — read by families in Winter Haven, FL.Why I love forestsA honeybee queen marked with a yellow dot on her back, surrounded by worker bees on the honeycomb. Real USGS photograph used on the Ellis Abel Learns "Why I Love Bees" page — read by families in Winter Haven, FL.Why I love beesA cultivated agricultural field stretching to the horizon with a wetland strip along its edge. Real USGS photograph used on the Ellis Abel Learns "Why I Love Farming" page — read by families in Winter Haven, FL.Why I love farmsAn alligator moving through a brackish waterway at Kennedy Space Center, only its eyes and back above the water. Real NASA photograph used on the Ellis Abel Learns "Why I Love Animals" page — read by families in Winter Haven, FL.Why I love animalsRed leaf lettuce, mizuna mustard and green lettuce growing under pink-white LED lights in the Veggie plant growth hardware. Real NASA photograph used on the Ellis Abel Learns "Why I Love Plants" page — read by families in Winter Haven, FL.Why I love plantsA pair of American bald eagles perched on the rim of their large stick nest on Kennedy Space Center property. Real NASA photograph used on the Ellis Abel Learns "Why I Love Birds" page — read by families in Winter Haven, FL.Why I love birdsA blacktip reef shark swims just under the sunlit surface, above a head of coral, at Palmyra Atoll National Wildlife Refuge in the Pacific Ocean. Real USGS photograph used on the Ellis Abel Learns "Why I Love Sharks" page — read by families in Winter Haven, FL.Why I love sharks

Near Winter Haven

Why I love weather, everywhere in the US · All things to love · STEM jobs you could do · Summer camps in Winter Haven