for Teachers for Schools for Working Scholars for College Credit
for Working Scholars for College Credit
Copyright
Course Navigator
Weather Fronts Lesson for KidsNext Lesson 

Layers of the Atmosphere Lesson for Kids

Chapter 10 /  Lesson 3   Transcript
Try it risk-free for 30 days

An error occurred trying to load this video.

Try refreshing the page, or contact customer support.

Coming up next: Weather Fronts Lesson for Kids

You're on a roll. Keep up the good work!

Take Quiz Watch Next Lesson
 Replay
Your next lesson will play in 10 seconds
  • 0:04 The Atmosphere
  • 0:21 The Lower Atmosphere
  • 1:08 The Middle Atmosphere
  • 2:15 The Upper Atmosphere
  • 2:46 Lesson Summary
Save Save Save

Want to watch this again later?

Log in or sign up to add this lesson to a Custom Course.

Log in or Sign up

Timeline
Autoplay
Autoplay
Speed
Speed Audio mode

Recommended Lessons and Courses for You

Lesson Transcript
Instructor: Elizabeth Foster

Elizabeth has been involved with tutoring since high school and has a B.A. in Classics.

In this lesson, you'll learn about the layers of the atmosphere and what's special about each layer. You'll also learn how the conditions change as you move up from the ground into outer space.

The Atmosphere

The atmosphere is the layer of gas that surrounds the earth, including the air that you breathe. The atmosphere might be invisible, but there's a lot going on up there! It even has different layers, starting on the ground and stretching all the way up into space. Let's explore each layer on a journey to space.

The Lower Atmosphere

Imagine you're an astronaut taking off in a space shuttle. When you're on the ground walking to your ship, you're breathing in air from the lowest layer of the atmosphere. This layer is called the troposphere. Now hop in the space shuttle and get ready for your trip to space.

3... 2... 1... Takeoff! Your ship leaves the ground and starts rising through the troposphere. The troposphere is where weather happens. As you rise up through the troposphere, you might see clouds, rain, and other weather patterns. Most clouds stay inside the troposphere. If a cloud stretches up to the top of the troposphere, it gets squished and starts spreading outwards instead of reaching up any higher.

The troposphere stretches up 4 to 12 miles from the earth's surface. In the troposphere, the higher up you get, the colder the temperature gets.

The Middle Atmosphere

After the troposphere, you keep going up in your space shuttle into the middle atmosphere. The middle atmosphere has two layers: the stratosphere and the mesosphere.

The stratosphere is right above the troposphere. It's 19-27 miles thick. From here on up, it's lucky you're in a space shuttle because the air would be too thin to breathe otherwise. The stratosphere has different gases than the troposphere. Because of the different gases, the air in the stratosphere gets warmer as you go higher up. As you fly through the stratosphere in your space shuttle, you might see some balloons. These are weather balloons. They take pictures of clouds and other weather from above.

To unlock this lesson you must be a Study.com Member.
Create your account

Register to view this lesson

Are you a student or a teacher?

Unlock Your Education

See for yourself why 30 million people use Study.com

Become a Study.com member and start learning now.
Become a Member  Back
What teachers are saying about Study.com
Try it risk-free for 30 days
Description

Earning College Credit

Did you know… We have over 200 college courses that prepare you to earn credit by exam that is accepted by over 1,500 colleges and universities. You can test out of the first two years of college and save thousands off your degree. Anyone can earn credit-by-exam regardless of age or education level.

To learn more, visit our Earning Credit Page

Transferring credit to the school of your choice

Not sure what college you want to attend yet? Study.com has thousands of articles about every imaginable degree, area of study and career path that can help you find the school that's right for you.

Research Schools, Degrees & Careers

Get the unbiased info you need to find the right school.

Browse Articles By Category

Browse an area of study or degree level.

Recommended Articles
You are viewing lesson Lesson 3 in chapter 10 of the course:

 Back To Course

Science for Kids

11 chapters | 902 lessons

{{courseNav.course.topics.length}} chapters | {{courseNav.course.mDynamicIntFields.lessonCount}} lessons | {{course.flashcardSetCount}} flashcard set{{course.flashcardSetCoun > 1 ? 's' : ''}}

Ch 10. Weather for Elementary School
Ch 11. Environmental Science for Elementary...

Layers of the Atmosphere Lesson for Kids Related Study Materials

Create an account to start this course today
Try it risk-free for 30 days!
Create an account

Explore our library of over 79,000 lessons

Browse by subject
Support