We often receive calls from schools who remember having a Stephenson Screen in their school grounds as a child which is where they went to get the temperature readings. We still agree that this is a valuable way of enhancing your students experience of weather, however there is only so much you can measure in this way - temperature and humidity!

Therefore the benefit that electronic, or Automated Weather Stations (AWS), provide students is enormous. As discussed earlier AWS can be used in meteorology (as part of Geography), science and technology, maths, communications and media, and ICT.

We are often informed that weather data for all areas of the UK and world can be gained so easily from the world-wide web, so why would you use your budget to purchase an AWS for your school or educational establishment?

One teacher who had purchased from us summed it up well: He had been using an online weather data source for several years, then one day he went to it  it was no longer there. It was at this point that he realised that if he had purchased an AWS for the school, they would have their own records which would have been backed-up and able to access for years to come to provide comparisons for future students. Also, there is a key aspect of learning weather where you can see what is going on outside and relate it to data you are collecting at your site.....it is a different story if you are looking out the window where it is raining and then looking at data collected on the web for somewhere only 5 miles up the road where it is not raining.

Each year we are pleased to be told about even more ways an Automatic Weather Station can be used in educational establishments. Over the years we have been adding to the list below:

  • Use Weather Map Live to view data around the world
  • Covers data harvesting section of National Curriculum
  • Provides interesting information to collect - the data means something tangible rather than lots of digits
  • Geography lessons
  • Maths / Stats lessons - again interesting data to analyse
  • Software can assist with ICT programming / using flash
  • Media - weather reports, such as local students get from Eastbourne Youth Radio
  • Serve the community by having local weather on your school's website
  • Meteorological Group can be in charge of collating data into the spreadsheets saved on your intranets to provide people with access to the data
  • This information will be compared to the information collected from the School BMS system offering the students an overview of weather patterns and their effect on the building and energy usage.