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Emotion Weather Map

Run the Emotion Weather Map MicroSim Fullscreen

You can embed this MicroSim in your own course website with this iframe:

<iframe src="./main.html" width="100%" height="444px" scrolling="no"></iframe>

About this MicroSim

Emotion Weather Map is an interactive MicroSim for this health-education textbook.

Students distinguish between a specific emotional trigger and a broader ongoing situation, and analyze how both combine to influence a person's reaction.

Use the controls in the panel below the drawing to interact with the model, then talk through what changed and why. The MicroSim is width-responsive and can be embedded in any course page with the iframe shown above.

Bloom's Taxonomy level: Analyze (L4) — examine, distinguish, differentiate

Lesson Plan

Audience

This MicroSim is designed for Grade 5. For the K-3 bands the teacher typically drives the activity on a shared screen; older students can explore the MicroSim independently.

Learning Objective

Students distinguish between a specific emotional trigger and a broader ongoing situation, and analyze how both combine to influence a person's reaction.

This activity targets Bloom's Analyze (L4) (examine, distinguish, differentiate).

Suggested Use (about 10 minutes)

  1. Warm up (2 min). Ask students what they already know about the topic and let one volunteer describe what they see on the screen.
  2. Model it (3 min). Demonstrate the interaction once, thinking aloud so students hear the reasoning behind each choice.
  3. Guided practice (3 min). Invite students to try the interaction and to predict what will happen before they act.
  4. Discuss (2 min). Ask why the result came out the way it did, connecting the on-screen result back to the learning objective above.

Check for Understanding

Have each student (or pair) explain their result in one sentence, using the vocabulary from this chapter. Look for reasoning that matches the Analyze-level objective rather than a lucky guess.

Specification

The full specification below was extracted from Chapter 3: Managing Emotions and Relationships.

Type: microsim
**sim-id:** emotion-weather-map<br/>
**Library:** p5.js<br/>
**Status:** Specified

Bloom Taxonomy: Analyze (L4)
Bloom Taxonomy Verb: examine, distinguish, differentiate

Learning objective: Students distinguish between a specific emotional trigger and a broader ongoing situation, and analyze how both combine to influence a person's reaction.

Canvas layout:
- Left side (450px): A "weather map" showing a character with a background weather condition (sunny, cloudy, stormy) representing their ongoing situation
- Right side (200px): A trigger card selector and a resulting-reaction display

Visual elements:
- Character icon in the center with a weather backdrop that can be set to Sunny (well-rested, good week), Cloudy (average week, some stress), or Stormy (rough week, poor sleep, family stress)
- A trigger card area showing one small triggering event (e.g., "A friend cancels plans")
- A reaction meter showing how big the resulting emotional reaction is predicted to be

Interactive controls:
- Dropdown: Choose the background "weather" (Sunny, Cloudy, Stormy) representing the ongoing situation
- Button: "Add a Trigger" — cycles through small trigger cards
- Display: Reaction meter updates to show a small, medium, or large reaction based on the combination

Default parameters:
- Weather: Sunny
- Trigger: "A friend cancels plans"

Behavior:
- The same trigger produces a bigger predicted reaction when the background weather is Stormy than when it is Sunny, teaching that surrounding situations change how strongly a trigger lands
- A short explanation panel updates each time, describing why the same event can hit differently depending on the situation

Instructional Rationale: This is an Analyze-level objective requiring students to examine how two factors (situation and trigger) interact, so the pattern is a parameter explorer that makes the combination visible and concrete rather than a single passive animation.

Implementation notes: Use p5.js. Store weather-to-reaction multipliers and trigger base-intensity values as simple lookup data; reaction meter recalculates from weather multiplier times trigger base intensity.

References