Have you ever wished you could see into the future? Imagine knowing exactly what will happen next! In stories and movies, people often use magical things like crystal balls to see the future. In North America, there’s a fun holiday called Groundhog Day that is a bit like this. Instead of a crystal ball, people use a groundhog to guess if spring will come early.
Every year on February 2nd, people in the United States and Canada watch a groundhog come out of its burrow. The legend says that if the groundhog sees its shadow, there will be six more weeks of winter. If it doesn’t see its shadow, spring will come early. The most famous groundhog is Punxsutawney Phil from Pennsylvania. People have been watching Phil make his prediction since 1886!
So, can a groundhog really predict the weather? Well, Punxsutawney Phil is only right about two out of every five times. That’s not very accurate! In fact, flipping a coin might give you a better chance of guessing if spring will come early.
The idea of using animals to predict the weather comes from old traditions brought by German people to North America. These traditions are called superstitions. Superstitions are beliefs that don’t always make sense, like knocking on wood for good luck or avoiding walking under a ladder.
While groundhogs might not be great at predicting the weather, some people believe that other animals can sense changes in the weather. For example, some dogs seem to know when a thunderstorm is coming. A friend of mine has a dog named Grace who gets nervous before a storm, even before my friend knows it’s coming!
Dogs have amazing senses. They can hear and smell things that we can’t. While scientists think dogs might not hear thunderstorms before we do, they might smell them. Thunderstorms have a special smell, like rain or even a burning smell from lightning. Dogs might be able to smell these things from far away.
Scientists are curious if other animals can predict weather changes too. One scientist is studying animals all over the world by attaching tiny sensors to them. These sensors help track the animals’ movements and see if they react to weather changes or natural disasters like earthquakes.
Groundhog Day is a fun tradition, but it’s not a reliable way to predict the weather. However, some animals might be able to sense weather changes because their senses are stronger than ours. Scientists are still exploring this idea, and maybe one day, animals will help us understand the weather better!
Thanks for reading! Stay curious and keep exploring the mysteries around us!
Animal Weather Diary: Start a weather diary at home! Each day, observe the weather and write down what you see. Is it sunny, rainy, or cloudy? Then, watch your pet or a nearby animal. Do they act differently when the weather changes? Draw a picture of the animal and describe what you notice. Share your diary with your class after a week and see if anyone noticed similar behaviors!
Shadow Experiment: On a sunny day, go outside and find your shadow. Notice how it changes when you move. Try this experiment: stand in one spot and mark where your shadow falls with chalk. Come back at different times of the day and mark your shadow again. What do you notice about the length and direction of your shadow? Discuss with your friends how this might relate to the groundhog seeing its shadow on Groundhog Day.
Weather Prediction Game: Pretend to be a weather-predicting animal! Choose an animal and think about how it might react to different weather conditions. Create a short play or skit with your friends where each of you is a different animal predicting the weather. Perform your skit for your family or classmates and explain why you think your animal would act that way.
Sure! Here’s a sanitized version of the transcript:
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(phone ringing) – Hi, it’s Doug. Wouldn’t it be interesting to see into the future? To know what kinds of things will happen? Well, that’s something a lot of people have wanted for a long time. In stories and movies, people have imagined things like a crystal ball that can show you exactly what’s going to happen. And you could say, in a way, there’s an entire holiday about this, at least in North America: Groundhog Day. Except instead of a crystal ball, we pretend that a groundhog can help us predict the future, specifically to predict if warmer, springtime weather will come sooner than we hope. Someone named Renatta has a question about this. Let’s give Renatta a call now. (phone ringing) – Hi, Doug. – Hi, Renatta! – I have a question for you. Can animals really predict the weather? – Oh, that’s a great question. In case you’re not familiar with the details, every year on February 2nd, people in the United States and Canada gather to watch a groundhog crawl out of its burrow, where it’s been hibernating all winter. Legend says that if the groundhog sees its shadow on the ground, there will be six more weeks of winter weather. In other words, cold weather all the way through the middle of March. And if there’s no shadow, warmer, spring weather will be here sooner than March. In the United States, the most popular groundhog that people watch is named Punxsutawney Phil. He lives in the town of Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, a town that takes Groundhog Day very seriously. They have a big party, and visitors come from around the world to watch Phil make his prediction, which he’s been doing since the year 1886. So, is it true? Is this groundhog any good at actually predicting whether there’ll be an early spring? Well, you be the judge. Punxsutawney Phil is only right two out of every five times. That means if you flipped a coin to decide whether spring would come early, you’d actually do a better job of predicting this than Phil does. Where does anyone even get the idea of using an animal to predict the weather? After all, we don’t normally use animals to predict the weather. Meteorologists, those are scientists who study the weather, have all kinds of scientific instruments that they use, things like radar and satellites that can spot storms from overhead, thermometers and anemometers, tools that measure wind speed. So, how did this Groundhog Day tradition come about in the first place? (crowd cheering) Well, Groundhog Day is an old tradition brought by German people who came to North America to live. And you know, traditions don’t always make sense. Some of them are what we call superstitions. Like, have you ever seen someone knocking on wood and saying, “Knock on wood!” in the hopes of having good luck? Or the idea of walking around a ladder instead of under it in the hopes of avoiding bad luck? Those are superstitions. But is that it? The whole idea of an animal being able to predict the weather, it’s just a superstition? This got me curious. Are there actually any animals that might be able to predict the weather? Well, a friend of mine claims that her dog can predict thunderstorms. This is her dog, Grace. My friend says Grace can tell that a thunderstorm is coming before my friend even knows it’s going to happen. According to my friend, about 15 or 20 minutes before my friend is even aware it’s about to storm, Grace will stop being her regular, happy self and start acting scared and nervous. She paces and shivers. She shakes. She even hides under the bed. Poor Grace. Maybe you’ve noticed this too if you have a dog, or if you know someone who has a dog. But, how would a dog know that a thunderstorm is coming before my friend does? How do you think she can tell? Now would be a good time to pause the video and discuss. Okay, you ready? Maybe you thought, “Well, a dog has a really great sense of hearing, so maybe dogs can hear a thunderstorm coming before we can.” That’s definitely what I thought, but my friends at Mystery Science looked into this and found out that scientists think it’s unlikely that a dog can hear a thunderstorm before we can, because a dog’s great sense of hearing is good at high-pitched sounds, not low-pitched sounds like the rumbling of thunder. But there are other possibilities. For example, dogs don’t just have a great sense of hearing; they also have a great sense of smell, and thunderstorms do have a smell, the smell of rain. Maybe you’ve noticed that smell before. Scientists have discovered it’s an earthy smell that gets released when the soil gets hit by rain droplets. And even lightning has a smell. When it’s very close, human beings can smell it, and people describe it as kind of a burning plastic or metal smell. So, it is possible that because a dog’s sense of smell is so much better than ours, they might be able to tell a storm is coming by the smell of rain or lightning, even when it’s far away. So, it may be that groundhogs aren’t good at predicting how long the cold winter weather will last, but there is some reason for thinking that dogs can tell a storm is coming. What I think is interesting to notice here is the reason why we think an animal like a dog might be able to make a weather prediction. It’s because some of a dog’s senses are more powerful than ours. Could there be other animals that can use their powerful senses to predict changes in the weather, changes that we don’t notice very quickly? Well, at least one scientist is looking into this. This scientist is doing a study where he tracks different animals around the world by attaching tiny sensors to their backs. The sensors are so light that he can put them on everything from insects to larger animals like goats, elephants, and even bears. Once the sensors are attached, the scientist and his team carefully watch for patterns, both in the weather and natural disasters like earthquakes, to see if the animals show any signs of knowing that a change is about to happen. So in summary, the tradition of looking for a groundhog’s shadow on Groundhog Day isn’t actually helpful for predicting the weather. It’s just a fun tradition. But, if we ask ourselves if any animals could predict changes in the weather, there are some reasons for looking into this. If we do find more examples, maybe those animals can help us make weather predictions in addition to the weather tools we already use. That’s all for this week’s question. Thanks, Renatta, for asking it. Now, we’ll be back with a new episode in a couple of weeks, but in the meantime, here are some older questions from the question jar. You can vote on which one you think we should send out next week. You can choose from, “Why can’t airplanes fly to space?” “How does your heart pump blood?” or “Why are flamingos pink?” So submit your vote when the video’s over. We want to hear from all of you watching. There are mysteries all around us. Stay curious, and see you next week.
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