|
|
School children from around the world are preparing to look
to the skies for a fortnight as part of MetLinkInternational
- an Internet based project where schools record weather observations
in their area.
Around 80 primary and secondary schools from 27 countries have
already registered to be part of MetLink and will be taking
part from a range of locations including the UK, America, Ethiopia,
India, Japanan and Romania.
 At
the same time every day the children will take a range of meteorological
readings and enter them into an online database which can then
be compared with the other school participants. They record
details such as cloud cover, pressure, rainfall, relative humidity,
temperature, wind speed, wind direction, and a general description
of the weather.
They will take the readings for a two-week period starting at
the end of this month. Meteorological experts will be Online
to look at their readings, give them feedback and compare their
figures with official data. The coordinators will put a summary
report together each evening, in which they will explain how
the observations from the schools matched with what national
and international forecasters had predicted for the day, and
how accurate they were.
 The
aims of the project are principally to encourage young people
to develop an interest in the weather. Many schools throughout
the World study the weather to some extent and this will help
with the projects they need to carry out. In addition, it is
to show them how easy and beneficial it is to use the Internet
to improve their weather studies. Naturally, after using meteorological
equipment for a fortnight, the students should have an understanding
of these tools and a working knowledge of how to take weather
observations.
To be able to look on the Internet at the results of fellow
students in different countries should make studying the weather
more interesting for the participants as they compare the range
of weather others are experiencing around the world. Students
in the Northern hemisphere could be recording low temperatures
and even snow, while in the southern countries of the World,
warmer weather will be occurring.
Useful links
MetLinkInternational
To join project email education@royal-met-soc.org.uk
DIY
Weather - help from the BBC Weather Centre's Weatherwise
section
(The BBC is not responsible for the content of
external websites)
|
|
|
|
