In our lessons we talked about the question how the winter is like in other countries. Somebody thought that not everywhere is winter, but we were not really able to answer this question. Then our teacher asked us how we could find out about it. Somebody had an idea :
"Why not ask the children in other countries ?" The first reaction was laughter , but then our teacher made a suggestion : "What about sending an e-mail containing our questions via Internet ?" We thought it a good idea and started collecting our questions :

1. How warm is it today at your place ?

2. How warm is it in the winter at your place ?

3. How do you spend the winter (activities) ?

4. How much snow did you have this year ?

5. What is it like in winter at your place ?

6. Have you ever experienced a tornado ?

7. Has it ever happened that you can't go to school due to bad weather conditions ?

8. When does your winter start and end ?

After that we sent our questions via Internet. Our teacher helped us with that. We thought that we might get one or two answers within a week's time. But how wrong we were ! On the very same day the first ten students sent us their reply. The following days we received more than 70 e-mails from all over the world. We have listed them in a table in the appendix.

Most of the replies came from America. But there were also some from Scandinavia, the Tcheque Republique, Estland and Australia. Those who answered were not only students, but also teachers and N A S A scientists. Some of them had their own questions to us or wanted pen friends.

Since we have only been learning English for a short time, our class teachers helped us with the translation.

a) Drawing up of maps

First we looked for the places the e-mails came from in our atlas. Then we entered them into maps. We didn't find all of the places, but most of them.

b) Comparison of the temperatures of places far away from each other

In the encyclopedia we found a division into climatic zones. It is cold in the North and warm in the South. That is due to the position of the sun.

Could we confirm that with our temperatures ?

At first we had a problem : We always had only one temperature available for the comparison. In order to evaluate the differences between temperatures more closely, we somehow had to get further temperatures. Once when we were in the computer science room, we took our chance. We searched some from the schools that had written to us during the same period when we had entered temperatures in the Internet (GLOBE-program). Thus we found Kingston (North Carolina) and Hanko (Finland). We then printed these measurements.

After that we drew the temperatures on graph paper. We entered the current temperature on a piece of paper (measured when the sun is at ist zenith). On another piece of paper we drew the maximum and minimum measures.

To compare the measurements we formed the average temperatures for the period between October, 26^th and December, 16^th 1998 :

Kinston : current temperature (when the sun is at ist zenith)

amount of measurements 563,5° C

number of measurings 31

average value 563,5° C : 31 » 18° C

Maximum temperature

amount of measurements 692° C

number of measurings 31

average value 692° C : 31 » 22° C

Minimum temperature

amount of measurements 240,5° C

number of measurings 31

average value 240,5° C : 31 » 7,8° C

Hanko : current temperature (when the sun is at ist zenith)

amount of measurements -9,5° C

number of measurings 47

average value -9,5° C : 47 » -0,2° C

maximum temperature

amount of measurements 65° C

number of measurings 47

average value 65° C : 47 » 1,4° C

minimum temperature

amount of measurements -133,5° C

number of measurings 47

average value -133,5° C : 47 » -2,8° C

Velbert : current temperature (when the sun is at ist zenith)

amount of measurements 124,7° C

number of measurings 30

average value 124,7° C : 30 » 4,0° C

maximum temperature

amount of measurements 213,8° C

number of measurings 30

average value 213,8° C : 30 » 7,1° C

minimum temperature

amount of measurements 7,9° C

number of measurings 45

average value 7,9° C : 30 » 0,3° C

After that we compared the temperatures measured by the students in Kinston and Hanko

with our measurements.

The average temperatures in Hanko (Finland) proved to be significantly lower than those in Kinston (USA). Our own measurements are settled somewhere in between. Looking at the map, Hanko is situated north of us and Kinston south of us. Therefore the temperature increases from the North to the South.

But what about the temperatures for places that are not situated north or south of each other ? These places are situated on the same latitude.
In the encyclopedia you can find : In the lowest layer of the atmosphere the temperature usually falls 5,5° C per 1000 metres.

We have already experienced that. Velbert is at an elevation of 230 m. If you drive to Velbert from a neighbouring town (with a lower elevation) where it is raining, it may happen that it is already snowing there. That means it must be colder there.

For our survey we had to look for places with major differences in elevation.
We decided for Craig, Los Angeles and Sheridan.

We entered the temperatures that the students sent us in their e-mails together with the elevation in a table :

In order to be able to compare the different temperatures, we first had to convert them. Most of the American students had given us the temperatures in Fahrenheit instead of Celsius. For that we first had to take away 32 degrees and then to divide the result by 1,8.

The table shows that there are actually differences in temperature as the dictionary maintained : e.g. the difference in elevation between Craig and Los Angeles is about 2000 metres. That means the temperature in Los Angeles should be about 11° C higher. Our table shows 10,5° C.

We found out that the temperature depends on the latitude and the elevation of the place.

Besides, also geographical peculiarities are relevant. The students from Harbor Beach (Michigan) wrote us that they have something lake "lake effect snow". First we did not know how to imagine that special sort of snow. But then we learnt what it means :

Cold air is dragging above the water of the (warm) sea. Clouds are forming. In the surrounding of the lake snow is coming out of those clouds. Since Michigan has plenty of lakes, this special effect is a very common thing there.

In the atlas we saw that there are also a lot of lakes in Finland. We are going to ask Finnish students if they also have this "lake effect snow".

We have already answered the e-mails of some of the schools. Since they also work on the subject of winter, they wanted to learn from us something about the weather in Germany. Others were interested in pen-friends.

Some days ago we asked some schools about the snowstorm in the USA. One school has answered so far and reported about the storm.

class 5c

Gesamtschule Velbert