Recently the reduction of costs and advances in wireless technology has meant that many private homes and schools have been in a position to acquire a weather monitoring station.
These systems have much to offer schools across many different departments. The purpose of this short article is to highlight the possible benefits for schools considering acquiring a weather monitoring station of their own.
What is in a Typical School Weather Station?
The equipment will typically consists of the following (the example shown here is the Oregon Scientific WMR88):
A central weather station display unit:
A typical central display unit for a school weather station
Most displays will include a built-in barometric pressure sensor.
A suite of wireless sensors. These require no cabling, each sensor works on its own radio channel frequency and is battery powered. The range from sensor to the receiver in the central weather station display is typically of the order of 100m/300Ft.
A set of wireless weather sensors for a school weather station
The usual sensors included will be:
-A combined wind speed and direction sensor.
-Tipping bucket rain gauge.
-Combined air temperature and humidity sensor.
Each are lightweight and require nothing additional in terms of installation hardware beyond the mounting brackets and assemblies supplied (although most do not supply a Stevenson Screen for the combined air temperature and humidity sensor and while you certainly can use the sensor as supplied it is preferable to acquire a small screen for the sake of measurement accuracy). For more suggestions regarding suitable installation locations try here.
A USB connection at the weather station display for connection to a PC or Mac to allow the download of the data collected. Most weather station suppliers either provide a DVD with the software required or you can download it from the manufacturer’s website.
What Could a Weather Station Offer the School?
The value of having the school’s own weather system when teaching natural sciences is of course obvious and needs no further elucidation here.
A weather station presented online can be used to elevate the visibility of the school within the local community. Combining real time current and historical local weather data along with (for example) a live web cam can transform your school’s website from something visited once or twice a term into part of parents’ daily online routine.
Where a school newspaper is in circulation what could be more relevant than the local weather forecast from the school’s own weather station and forecasters?
As part of web site development teaching, the challenge of acquiring the collected data and presenting it in a lucid and attractive way is an excellent way of engaging the enthusiasm of pupils.
The mathematical handling of the instantaneous real time data collected from the weather station can used as a tangible application for all sorts of statistical analysis techniques from simple means through to standard deviation. Similarly the derivation of weather parameters such as dew point can be used with real world examples when teaching logarithms and natural exponents.
What Have Other Schools Done with a Weather Station?
As an illustration of what can be done here are some examples of schools that have used a weather station of their own to develop a hugely impressive online presence.
Bablake School in Coventry have had a weather station since 1977 and have developed a wonderful web site around it which is well worth a visit , with a daily weather forecast for the Coventry area as well as comments on current weather trends, it is easy to imagine that many local people will use this as their weather information source as well as being a wonderful promotional tool for the school itself. Somewhere behind the scenes must be a pretty keen maths teacher too because they have an exhaustive set of analysis of the historical weather data gathered from the station.
The Maiden Erlegh School in Wokingham has a simple but very effective weather display updated every minute or so combined with a webcam :
The Maiden Erlegh Weather Station Web Display.
The teacher responsible for organising the weather station (and what sounds like a very successful weather club) at the Maiden Erlegh School outlines the advantages that he feels having a weather station have brought in an article on the Geographical Association website .
The price for such a weather station is in the region of £150. A school weather station offers a myriad of potential benefits that are limited only by the collective imagination of the school community, that must be a bargain for the price.
