It's Installation Time for Charter School's New Weather Station!

"Thanks to the Friends of the Marblehead Public Schools, we're installing a weather station that will not only give our students the opportunity to collect and analyze weather data, but will be a service to the community as well," says MCCPS science teacher James Rogers.

The Vantage Pro 2 Weather Station, of the 20 grants funded by FMPS for 2018-19, will be installed over the next week, but activities based around the weather have already started. September is FEMA's "National Preparedness Month," and "we made our own preparedness kit and a power point based on FEMA preparedness guidelines," Rogers said.

Once students have access to weather data, they will be able to enhance and practice multiple skills in a real-world context. "We do a lot of integration here at Charter, and weather is such a good way to integrate all of the different subjects students study, and have more specific discussions about how weather and weather disasters impact populations," explained Rogers.

The Charter TV enrichment club could be doing weather reports in the near future, Rogers said, and younger students will be gaining an even more elemental understanding of the weather by building their own barometers and anemometers with other supplies--straws, balloons, cardboard, and cups--that were also included in the grant.

Future projects include collaborating with the school's Marblehead Shark Club--another FMPS grant!--to discover links between weather trends and events and shark activity. And once the weather data is collected, parents will be able to view the weather at MCCPS via the Weatherlink app, and the data can also be uplinked to larger networks such as Weather Underground.

"The opportunities are endless, and we're excited to be getting started!" said Rogers.