Synthesize the water cycle, air masses, storms, and forecasting into one connected model of Earth's weather system.
This unit has been one connected story, told from different angles. The water cycle, powered by the sun's energy and gravity, moves water between the ocean, air, and land. Air masses form when air sits over one kind of surface long enough to take on its temperature and humidity, and fronts form where different air masses collide, often triggering storms, from an ordinary thunderstorm up to a tornado or a hurricane.
Weather maps are simply a way of drawing all of these ideas, pressure, fronts, air masses, at once, and forecasting is using those clues to make a testable claim about tomorrow. None of these ideas stand alone: a forecaster reading a map is really reading the water cycle and air masses in symbol form, predicting where the next front, and the next round of evaporation, condensation, and precipitation, will happen.
Mastery looks like: They can connect the water cycle, air masses, storms, and forecasting into one explanation, rather than treating them as separate memorized facts.
Common stumbles: Recalling each week's vocabulary in isolation without connecting cause and effect between them; treating the review week as unnecessary if isolated facts feel familiar.