In more than 270 schools across Kerala, a designated group of students armed with pens and notepads approach the school playground at 11 am every day. They head towards a caged structure that houses a set of instruments, including different thermometers, a rain gauge, a wind vane and a cup anemometer. Together, they are the school weather station, where students note rain accumulation, wind speed and direction, temperature and humidity. Initiated by the Samagra Shiksha Kerala, the state agency responsible for universalising elementary and secondary education, the school weather stations are miniature models that teach students in Classes 11 and 12 how weather patterns are tracked. The project has been initiated also to get them more interested in geography. It also aims to keep a daily track of the localised weather and help improve weather predictions. However, at present, there is no system in place to collect and analyse the data measured by the schools. Teachers are hopeful that a centralised data collection and analysis system will evolve.Samagra Shiksha Kerala set up the school weather stations in collaboration with the General Education Department and the Advanced Centre for Atmospheric Radar Research at Cochin University of Science and technology (CUSAT), which was the technical partner. 

Source-Express Photo