Look... Up in the Air... Name That Cloud! Do Just One Thing: Join The Green Team Crossword Puzzle

“Clouds have an enormous influence on Earth’s energy balance, climate and weather,” according to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). “Clouds are the key regulator of the planet’s average temperature.”

Clouds help regulate Earth’s energy balance by both reflecting and scattering sunlight and by absorbing Earth’s heat. Clouds also are necessary for precipitation and indicate what’s happening in our atmosphere. For example, cumulus clouds indicate surface heating and turbulence. And clouds help redistribute extra heat from the equator toward the poles.

While playing their very important role for our planet, they also can be fun to identify. Besides finding bunnies and elephants and horses in their shapes, you also can predict the weather just by looking at clouds. Their shape, color and height in the sky all tell a story.

High-level clouds form above 20,000 feet where temperatures are so cold that they are mostly made of ice crystals. Despite being thin and white, such clouds can reflect many different colors when the sun is low on the horizon. The most common forms of high-level clouds consist of thin and often wispy cirrus clouds. Cirrus clouds mean fair weather with no rain or snow and point in the direction of air movement at their elevation. (see examples below)

Cirrus clouds — thin, wispy clouds blown by high winds into long streamers.	Cirrostratus clouds — thin, sheet-like high clouds that often cover the entire sky. They are so thin that the sun and moon can be seen through them.	Cirrocumulus clouds — small, rounded white puffs. The small ripples in these clouds sometimes resemble the scales of a fish. A sky with cirrocumulus clouds is sometimes referred to as a “mackerel sky.”

Mid-level clouds have bases between 6,500 to 20,000 feet above ground. Because of their lower altitudes, they are composed mostly of water droplets, but can have ice crystals when it’s cold enough. (see examples below)

Altocumulus clouds — gray, puffy masses, sometimes roll out in waves or bands. If you see them on a warm, humid summer morning, it often means thunderstorms are coming by late afternoon.	Altostratus clouds usually cover the entire sky. In the thinner areas of the cloud, the sun may be dimly visible as a round disk. These clouds predict steady rain or snow.

Low-level clouds are mostly made of water droplets since their bases are below 6,500 feet, but when it gets cold enough, these clouds may also contain ice particles and snow. These are the clouds that bring us dismal, drizzly days. (see examples below)

Nimbostratus — dark clouds accompanied by light rain or snow.	Stratus clouds — uniform grayish clouds that often cover the entire sky. They resemble fog that does not reach the ground. Usually no precipitation falls from stratus clouds, but sometimes they may drizzle. When a thick fog “lifts,” the resulting clouds are low stratus.

Vertical-forming clouds or multi-level clouds are tall in the sky and provide the some of our most interesting and severe weather. (see examples below)

Cumulus clouds — puffy clouds that look like pieces of floating cotton. The base of each cloud is often flat and low. When small, cumulus clouds mean good weather, but as these clouds grow upward, they can develop into a giant cumulonimbus, which is a thunderstorm cloud.	Cumulonimbus clouds — thunderstorm clouds with dark bases. Their base may be very low but their tops may extend to almost 40,000 ft. high. Tremendous energy is released by the condensation of water vapor within a cumulonimbus. Lightning, thunder and even violent tornadoes are associated with this type of cloud.

What’s a contrail? Are the condensation trails known as contrails that airplanes leave across the sky really considered clouds? Contrails are formed when water vapor condenses and freezes around small particles in airplane exhaust. Some last for quite a while in the sky if the air has lots of moisture in it. They are human-made cirrus clouds.

Do Just One Thing: Join the Green Team
If your school doesn’t have a green team yet, it’s time to get one started! A green team is a group of students, teachers, staff and parents that cares about the environment and wants to take action. Through your school’s Green Team, you can do your part to carry out “a billion acts of green” for Earth Day and every day!

Green Teams give you a chance to work with other students and adults to solve problems. You can apply the skills you’ve been learning in school to real-world problems. Who knew that waste reduction and recycling was really all about math, science and social studies?

A Green Team can also save money for your school. Depending on what projects you take on, you can reduce waste disposal, purchasing and energy costs, and even earn money from recyclable items that you collect.

So How Do We Start?
Gain Support: With the OK from your school’s administration or parent/ teacher group, you’re more likely to create a successful team.

Form Your Team: A Green Team is simply a group of people dedicated to promoting waste reduction, recycling, energy efficiency and responsible purchasing in your school. Try to involve everyone, including custodians, cooks, maintenance workers, faculty, students and parents.

Choose a Leader: Select one or two leaders who are committed to your program. One adult and one student leader may be a good idea.

Set Goals: Start small. Your Green Team will have lots of great ideas, but don’t try to do everything at once. Begin with simple projects that you know will succeed. Then you can expand your program little by little.

Gather Data: Track and measure and analyze your results, before and after you implement a program. This is the only way to know how well you’re doing!

Celebrate Success: Be sure to tell others about your successes. This includes your team and others in the school and the community.

Keep It Up: The team needs to keep up its momentum to continue to find new projects while maintaining the existing programs.

Green Team Resources

Healthy Schools Campaign www.healthyschoolscampaign.org/programs/gcs/

Go Green Initiative
www.gogreeninitiative.org/PDF/PlanningGuide.pdf

The Green Team
www.thegreenteam.org

Maryland Department of Environmental Protection and Security Green Schools www.baltimorecountymd.gov/Agencies/environment/education/ep_greenschool.html

New York State Department of Environmental Conservation Green Schools www.dec.ny.gov/chemical/ 8803.html

ShopRite’s Green Teams
ShopRite recently developed a program to help each of its stores build a green team. A toolkit, designed to make it fun and easy for ShopRite Associates to work together to make ShopRite a better environmental steward and a better place to work, is now available for all ShopRite stores. ShopRite hopes to lead by example by building more and more retail Green Teams!

Across

1. ________ are made of water and ice.

3. A gray sky where you can’t see the sun is covered in ________ clouds.

4. An ________ vehicle runs solely on batteries.

6. Light emitting ________ offer a more efficient type of lighting than traditional light bulbs.

8. Big, billowy, cottony clouds are called ________ clouds.

11. ________ ________ can help you keep track of energy use in your house.

14. A traditional light bulb is known as an ________ bulb.

15. ShopRite has been selling Fair Trade Certified ________ in all of its stores since 2008.

16. Driving ________ means reducing gas consumption by avoiding quick stops and starts.

18. Making sure that the farmers who produce goods are paid a reasonable wage for their products is called ________ ________.

19. One way to reduce waste is to look for products in recyclable ________.

21. Keeping your ________ properly inflated can help increase your gas mileage.

Down

1. A high, wispy cloud is called a ________ cloud.

2. An electric vehicle is powered by ________ -ion batteries.

5. _______ _______ can reflect summer heat to reduce energy use in your house.

7. The large body of water in need of protection that borders several East Coast states is the _______ _______.

8. Some ShopRite stores send food waste to ________ facilities instead of landfills.

9. ________ waste is one of the biggest parts of our waste stream.

10. One way to do the right thing for the Earth within your school is to start a ________ ________.

12. ________ was the first Fair Trade Certified product.

13. One of the most important missions of the Chesapeake Bay Foundation is ________.

17. Clouds with a gray bottom, which often bring rain, are called ________ clouds.

20. The Chesapeake Bay watershed covers ________ states and the District of Columbia.

Check your answers below...

Across: 1. Clouds 3. Stratus 4. Electric 6. Diodes 8. Cumulus 11. Power Monitors 14. Incandescent 15. Flowers 16. Gently 18. Fair Trade 19. Packaging 21. Tires Down: 1. Cirrus 2. Lithium 5. Cool Roofs 7. Chesapeake Bay 8. Composting 9. Food 10. Green Team 12. Coffee 13. Education 17. Nimbus 20. Six