{"id":101,"date":"2011-10-02T03:28:47","date_gmt":"2011-10-02T03:28:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/oldnaturalist.com\/?p=101"},"modified":"2011-11-06T03:11:01","modified_gmt":"2011-11-06T03:11:01","slug":"using-wooly-bears-to-predict-the-weather","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/oldnaturalist.com\/?p=101","title":{"rendered":"Using Wooly Bears to Predict the Weather"},"content":{"rendered":"

Background Information:<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

The old Farmer’s Almanac said that you could predict the harshness of a winter by observing the color patterns on wooly bear caterpillars. It was said that if the orange band in the center of the body is greater than a third of the body, then it will be a mild winter. If the orange band is equal to the size of the black bands, it will be an average winter. However, if the black band on the sides of the body is larger than the orange band, it will be a harsh winter. Yesterday, I saw a wooly bear that was all black, and today, I saw one that was all orange.
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Procedure:<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

This study can be an aspect of the Wooly Bear Week<\/em> study (posted earlier). If a student brings in a wooly bear, students can check the size of the orange and black bands and predict the winter based upon their observations. However, older students can report the color pattern they observed and leave the animals in their natural habitat. Below is sample chart that shows the different patterns. My class has shared our data with local TV stations and they are always interested in a new angle on the weather. <\/span><\/p>\n

In 2011, from mid September to mid October, I did not get many reports of wooly bears. My sample size was too small (14) to make any dramatic statements about the weather this winter. However, I thought the comments posted by Paul Larson on wooly bears was very interesting.
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\nGraphics by Jeanette Dickinson<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Background Information: The old Farmer’s Almanac said that you could predict the harshness of a winter by observing the color patterns on wooly bear caterpillars. It was said that if the orange band in the center of the body is … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":104,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-101","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fall","category-insects"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/oldnaturalist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/10\/Screen-shot-2011-10-01-at-10.25.31-PM.png","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/oldnaturalist.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/oldnaturalist.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/oldnaturalist.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/oldnaturalist.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/oldnaturalist.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=101"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"http:\/\/oldnaturalist.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":106,"href":"http:\/\/oldnaturalist.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101\/revisions\/106"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/oldnaturalist.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/104"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/oldnaturalist.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=101"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/oldnaturalist.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=101"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/oldnaturalist.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=101"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}