MetLink - Contact Message 2 -
1999
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In MetLinkInternational, there are children aged 6 and students aged
19. There is something in the project for everyone, but you will, of
course, adapt my suggestions to meet your own needs.
SUGGESTED THEME 1 >>>>>
How carefully do your students listen to the weather forecast? I
had a humbling experience recently when I had to do some
transcription work, taking my own words from a tape and word
processing them. Time and time again, I checked what I had typed with
what I had said. Time and time again, I found that I had misheard my
own words! And I thought I was concentrating!! How carefully do
people listen to the weather forecast? Why not tape the weather
forecast each morning and get your students to check (a) what was
actually said with what they thought was said (b) what was actually
said with what the weather actually was? It might prove an
interesting exercise!
RESPONSE FROM CHALDON SCHOOL
SUGGESTED THEME 2 >>>>>
In MetLinkInternational, we have quite a north-south contrast.
Indeed, we might well call the whole project 'Meteorology along the
meridian'. Between Scandinavia in January/February and southern
Africa in January/February there is quite a climatic contrast. In a
separate Contact Message, I shall draw some climatic features to your
attention. Meanwhile, may I suggest that you explore the contrasts
during the active and review phases of MetLink?
To what extent are the weather observations received from
participating schools consistent with expectations at this time of
year? Would you be surprised if snow fell in Harare next week? Would
you be surprised if a station in Finland recorded a temperature of 15
degrees C in the next couple of weeks? Would a wind speed of 80
kilometres per hour at the school in the south-west of Wales be
remarkable? Would it at a school in south-east England? How do
latitude, altitude, distance from the sea, etc. affect the weather?
During the active phase of MetLink, I shall inspect the
observations each day and comment on them in terms of, for example:
"Have you noticed .....?"; "Isn't it interesting that .....?".
SUGGESTED THEME 3 >>>>>
What type of precipitation is falling at your school and other
schools in MetLinkInternational? Snow? Type of snow? Hail? Rain?
Freezing rain? Big drops of rain? Small drops? Drizzle? Convective
rain? Frontal precipitation? Relief (orographic) effects apparent?
Tropical summer rain? Intertropical Convergence Zone?
SUGGESTED THEME 4 >>>>>
In southern Britain, we have a number of participating schools along
a roughly west-east axis. Using this comparatively dense network, we
should be able to track the passage of fronts across the region.
How long does it take the rain at Pembroke to reach south-east
England, for example. DOES it reach south-east England? In
Scandinavia, we have five schools. What variations are there
between them, and why? And what happens to weather systems that cross
the British Isles by the time they reach, say, Finland? What changes
have occurred? And if it's wet and windy in the British Isles (as it
has been all too often lately), how different is the weather in Spain
and Malta? In southern Africa, too, we have a mini-network of
stations which should reveal interesting differences of weather
between localities.
Another aspect of our observing network is that it should be possible
to relate variations of wind speed, wind direction, temperature,
cloud amount, etc. to changes in, and movements of, weather systems.
I shall draw such variations to your attention on a day-by-day
basis.
It's interesting that Admiral FitzRoy, when he started producing
weather forecasts for the United Kingdom in the early 1860s, had at
his disposal not many more stations in the British Isles than we have
taking part in MetLinkInternational! When compiling forecasts in
early 1862, for example, FitzRoy used observations from twenty
British stations and five on the Continent of Europe. Could we make
sensible forecasts of the weather for the UK from the observations
supplied by the British schools participating in
MetLinkInternational?
RESPONSE FROM CHALDON
SCHOOL>>>>>
St Peter and St Paul School,
Chaldon, Surrey, UK
Hi there! Yesterdays Weather Watch got off to a good start with a
fascinating introduction to weather forecasting, weather lore, slides
and practical demonstrations of weathery things such as a tornado in
a bottle. Ian Currie produces a weather programme on Channel 5 and
has an endless supply of interesting ways of making weather come
alive for kids.
We have made some weather instruments as well as using actual
instruments which will enable us to compare data. All the children
are recording the weather each day from the four year olds upwards
although it is only the six year olds who are actually sending you
the data.
An essential part of this project is the ways it gives the pupils a
global perspective on life - we will be storing all the information
received from participating schools as a bank of first hand resources
for other geographical work later in the year
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