Come Rain, Come Shine

Activity FIVE

It's time to try out all the skills you've learned in Activities 2 - 4. I know I haven't told you before, but the whole idea of this Web Lesson is really to learn how to find out two things: a) how accurate is a weather forecast, and b) how "live" is a web cam. You know from experience that the weather forecast is not always right. But you may not realize that not all web cams are truly "live". Some web cams seem to be "delayed"-- sometimes the picture is minutes "old", sometimes hours or more!

STEP 1

Pick a place in the world to test out your skills (you can choose anywhere, but be sure it's a place that's likely to have a web cam-- it's best to choose a well known city.) Now go to http://weather.yahoo.com to see what the weather forecast is for that place. (Use your "back" button to return here when finished.)

STEP 2

Next let's see what time it really is at that place. Go to http://www.timeanddate.com/worlclock/ to find this out. (If your chosen location is not listed you'll have to look for a place that's close by to it.) (And then come back here again, using that "Back" button!)

STEP 3

Now you can go to a web cam in your chosen location to find out the two things I mentioned above: is the weather forecast accurate, and is the web cam truly "live"? (Usually the web cam picture has a "date and time" posted along with it.) You can click on http://www.camseyeview.com to locate a web cam for your chosen location. (When you're finished looking at the web cam picture, use the "Back" button to return here one more time.)

STEP 4

So what happened? Was the weather what you had expected it to be? Is the web cam there truly live?

If the weather forecast was wrong, you might want to check some of the other weather websites. One of them may have a more accurate forecast for your chosen location. (If you try this activity out many times you might even be able to see which weather website has the most frequently accurate forecasts!) But maybe the weather simply didn't act the way the forecasters predicted. Some people say weather prediction is still more of an art than a science!

If the web cam wasn't truly live-- what could be the reason? (Maybe it only runs certain hours of the day? Maybe there's a technical problem? What other reasons can you think of?)

Whatever your results, I know that you're well on your way to becoming an "INTERNET MASTER OF TIME AND PLACE" . Congratulations!