In this self-driven Earth Science activity, students will take data from both Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane Andrew to plot the direction, wind speed, and path of the hurricanes. Students will get an appreciation of the relationship between atmospheric pressure and wind speed. Students will plot on a double "y" axis chart the pressure and wind speed of Hurricane Katrina. Students will research and fill in a table about the different categories of hurricanes. They will define the word "sustained" as pertaining to hurricanes. Students will track Hurricane Katrina over several days to find out when the hurricane changed categories. Using a map of thousands of hurricanes, students will analyze which direction hurricanes travel and from which continent they come from. Finally, your students will gain an appreciation of storm surges and how the heights caused by wind speed are what causes most of the destruction and death from hurricanes. They will quickly do research to discover the 5 most deadly hurricanes, the categories, deaths, damage and find the storm height of each one.

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