Have you ever noticed that your mood may change with the weather? Maybe you feel a little happier on sunny days and a little sad on rainy or cloudy days? Or maybe you notice a very small shift in your feelings in connection with the weather, or no connection at all? Now is your chance to be a scientist and record your feelings and the weather and look for patterns!

What you will need:

  1. A notebook, journal, or some scraps of paper/cardboard
  2. A pen, markers, or colored pencils

What you will do:

  1. Each day, pick roughly the same time (or multiple times) during the day to do your observation.
  2. Write the date and time on your paper.
  3. Draw or write a picture representing how you are feeling. Some ideas for feeling words: happy, tired, sad, calm, anxious, energized, silly, serious, confused, brave, etc. 
  4. Take a look outside and determine the weather. This can be done by looking out a window, stepping outside, listening to the weather on the radio, looking up the weather online, or asking an adult. Then, draw or write a picture next to how you are feeling, to represent the weather. Some ideas for weather words: sunny, partly cloudy, rainy, windy, snowing, partly sunny, cloudy, etc.
  5. Continue to record your feelings and the weather for at least a week. Then, at the end of the week, take a look and see if there are any patterns? Whether or not you see any patterns, why do you think that is the case? 
  6. Continue recording every day (or multiple times a day) and consider adding additional notes- for instance, did you feel happy and then when you looked outside or learned the weather was rainy, did you notice any change in your feeling? Keep a record and have fun comparing your notes with friends and family!

The Minnesota Zoo would love to see examples of how you used this activity at home! Please share pictures or comments via email at [email protected], and take less than 5 minutes of time to provide us feedback by completing this short survey.