wunder beta

🌦️ Weather and Climate

Weather is what the sky is doing right now; climate is the pattern a place shows over many years. Learn to tell them apart.

lessons

~15 min

to learn

🔬 Science

subject

Ages 6–12

level

Start the course →

What you’ll learn

What's the Weather?Define weather as the state of the air at one place and time, and name its parts.Weather is what the air is doing at one place at one time, such as sun, rain, wind, or clouds. It can change quickly, even within a day. We measure its parts: temperature, rain, wind, and cloud cover.
What's the Climate?Define climate as the average weather of a place over many years.Climate is the usual pattern of weather a place has over a long time, about 30 years. Deserts are dry, rainforests are wet, and the poles are cold, year after year. We can describe a climate with averages like yearly temperature.
Telling Them ApartTell weather and climate apart by whether a statement is short-term or a long pattern.Weather is what is happening now; climate is what usually happens over many years. Weather changes fast, while climate is an average that changes slowly. Sorting statements by 'now' versus 'usual' helps tell them apart.

Questions this course answers

Which of these best describes weather?

Weather is what the air is doing at one place at one time, like the sun, rain, or wind you see today.

Which of these is a part of weather that we measure?

Temperature, rain, wind, and clouds are the parts of weather. Temperature tells us how hot or cold the air is.

What is climate?

Climate is the usual pattern of weather a place has over a long time, found by averaging about 30 years of weather.

A desert has a climate that is...

A desert's climate is hot and dry over many years, because it gets very little rain year after year.

'It is raining right now' is an example of...

Something happening right now, like rain this minute, is weather, not the long-term pattern of climate.

Which sentence is about climate, not weather?

'Always' describes a pattern repeated over many years, which is climate. The others are about a single moment, which is weather.

Grounded in trusted sources

NOAA
NASA Climate Kids
National Geographic Kids
Britannica Kids

Every Wunder lesson is built from real, reputable sources — never invented.

Related Science courses

📊Graphing Seasonal Weather ❄️Why does it snow 🪨Weathering and Erosion 🐬Whales and Dolphins Are Mammals 🎱What Happens When Things Collide 💧What Living Things Need 💡What Makes a Bulb Light Up 🏠What Uses Electricity at Home

Wunder is a personalized learn-anything platform — tell it any topic and it builds a beautiful, fact-checked course in minutes, with narration, a knowledge check, and a college-style University track.

Browse more Science courses · All topics · Home