Sixty three schools throughout Europe are taking part in an internet-based project, organised by the Royal Meteorological Society, to observe clouds and precipitation (ie. rain, snow, hail, sleet and freezing rain). Most of those taking part are in the UK and Italy, but there are others from ten further countries who are also getting involved.

The project is being run during National Science week, which runs from the 20th to the 24th March and it's hoped the total number of children involved will exceed thirteen hundred, all aged between 11 and 16.

Three times a day pupils will study the clouds and enter their findings into an online database. They will be looking at both atmospheric processes and movements of weather systems. Then, each evening, the Royal Meteorological Society will prepare a report about the day's weather, which they will forward to each participating school.

The idea behind the assignment is to encourage observation and to make pupils more aware of cloud and precipitation processes. It also supports the national curriculum for science and geography in the UK. There are similar guidelines in place in Europe too, although abroad meteorology falls into the science category rather than geography. The plan is to make studying weather systems and patterns fun and it is hoped children will find this project both enjoyable and interesting.

A similar project was run in 1996 but this is the first time the Internet has been used to collate the results. On top of improving IT skills, organisers believe schools will be able to link up with each other and learn about the physical geography and topography of other places in Europe and their effect on cloud formation. There should be some interesting observations from the French participants who are based at 1350m, on the south face of Mount Lozere - the highest peak in the Cevennes National Park, in the south of the country. The height of their base means they will sometimes be above the clouds.

Schools will be sent a booklet to help with their study, which will give basic information about clouds and precipitation, including how clouds are formed and how they are named.

You can view the findings of the project on the CloudWatchEurope 2000 website