If you are ready to join Sky Awareness Week, contact HOW THE WEATHERWORKS. We look forward to your participation in this project.
Welcome! You've obviously found out about our Sky Awareness Week data exchange project and want to learn more about it. Please read on.
This prototype data exchange project is designed to encourage students to look up and observe the sky. Among the curriculum areas that will be touched upon are:
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We will be posting some suggested sky-based activities on our Experiments page. We encourage you and your students to try these. Of course, you should conduct other activities, experiments, and investigations as are appropriate to your curriculum, students, and geographical area.
Although we are eager to have as many schools as possible become involved, our start-up resources still remained limited, and our Internet data collection software is not completed. For these reasons, we are only able to accept one or two schools per state (with certain exceptions...e.g., California, Texas). To see if we still need a school from your state, check out the Sky Awareness Week listing. We hope to have about 200 schools participating by 2003. However, we would still like to know of your interest so we can contact you for the 2002 program. Also, you can still share in other Sky Awareness Week activities at your school and in your local area. Anything that fosters sky awareness, an appreciation of the sky above, or a greater understanding of the natural world becomes a positive outcome.
Participation is easy! Students (grade 2 and above) need to be willing to observe the sky and report daily observations via the Internet. The "official" observation period will run through the end of April, but we would hope that students would want to continue until closer to the end of the school year. To create a year-long record, teachers and interested students may wish to collect data throughout the summer. If you are interested in doing this, contact us for further information. Data gathering will formally begin again at the start of the 2001-2002 school year.
Two ways to share data! We are working on updated procedures (i. e., an Internet form) for sharing data. We have tried sending having schools "bulk mail" their data to all participating schools each day. This has proven to be cumbersome and has created some overflowing mailboxes. To better manage data, we are planning to try the following procedure:
There is no cost to participate! However, if you decide to become involved, and your school is selected, your school may want to purchase some of our cloud and sky materials (NOTE: You are no obligation to do this in order to participate). These materials include:
If you wish to collect and share ultraviolet (UV) data, you may purchase a hand-held UV meter from us. Price for a new style UV meter is $139.00 plus $5.00 s/h. It comes with a set of grade-leveled activities guides for incorporating UV and sky study into your curriculum (elementary, middle and high school). NOTE: This meter is NOT required for participation in the program. All your school needs to do is participate daily. This means:
We may also need your student's help in obtaining a state proclamation for Sky Awareness Week. This simply involves writing a letter to the governor or one of your local state representatives. You will find a sample letter and copies of state proclamations already posted at our web site.
Should you decide to undertake this "political" aspect of SKY AWARENESS WEEK, you and your students will be able to keep the proclamation, frame it, and display it at your school. That is something very special.
All that HOW THE WEATHERWORKS requires is that you coordinate with us first (just to ensure that there is no duplication of effort in your state) and provide us an easy-to-read color copy of the proclamation (8" x 11" size) and/or a color jpg or gif file of the proclamation (resolution of file 200 dpi or greater) for posting at our web site.
Next, please review the participation parameters in further detail following, and drop us an e-mail message confirming your interest. Then we can move ahead. Be sure to include your phone number (school and home), fax #, and school mailing address in this initial message so we can reach you quickly should we have any questions.
Your school's initial e-mail submission should have the following (as much as possible should be researched and submitted by students). Teacher's should check student's work (especially spelling and grammar) before allowing the message to be transmitted. This message will be posted on this web site for others to see. Note that students will get a credit line for their work.
Subject: narrative description
Date: Tue, 10 Dec 1996 11:55:04 -0500 (EST)
From: Judy Lane <judylane@c2000.indianapolis.in.us>
To: hmmogil@weatherworks.com
Hawthorne Elementary, Indianapolis, IN
Our latitude is 39 degrees 46 min. North and longitude of 86 degrees, 10 min. West. Our altitude is 710 ft.above sea level. We are a suburban school with an open field to the south, a woods on the southeast, and houses on the other sides. We have cold winters with an average Jan. temperature of 29 degrees F (-2 degrees C). The summers are warm and humid with an average July temperature of 76 degrees F (24 degrees C). The average annual precipitation including rainfall, melted snow, and other forms of moisture is 39 1/4 in. (99.7cm). The White River flows through the downtown section of the city from the northeast to southwest and we are on the outer southeast boundary of Marion County which makes up Indianapolis.
Cory & Jason descriptive writers from Mrs. Lane's class.
We would also like to receive a copy of a newspaper weather page from your area. Please send this by snail mail. We will use the samples we receive to develop some weather activities. This will ensure that we examine weather pages from across the United States, not just in one area.
Observations should be e-mailed to sky_awareness_week@weatherworks.com at least once a week. Daily observations are preferred. Be sure to follow the format described below. It makes it much easier to proecss data when they are received.
The following
If you have any questions about these procedures, don't hesitate to write me at hmmogil@weatherworks.com
| HI WX WED, 10/8/96 (#511) |
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| WAIAU ELEMENTARY | spell out school name |
| PEARL CITY, HI | US postal 2 letter state ID |
| DATE 10/8/96 | |
| TIME 9:58am HST | be sure to include time zone; all times should be local standard time and within 1 hour +/- of noon) |
| TEMP. 89*F | |
| UV 4 | UV reading should be highest value from any direction in celestial dome (optional); range is typically 0 to 10 (but may be higher in low latitudes..e.g., Hawaii). |
| WIND SPD BF 1-2 | BF = Beaufort Force; can use mph, too |
| WIND DIR E | Direction FROM WHICH the wind is blowing |
| CLOUDS CUMULUS AND STRATUS | Type(s) of clouds present |
| SKY COVER 3/8 | Presented as fraction of a "pizza pie" |
| SKY/CLOUD COLOR(S) | Based on special cloud color chip set |
| REMARKS: IT WAS A WARM DAY WITH NOT MUCH CLOUDS | anything goes here!!! |
| JAMIE & FRANK | name(s) of student observers/weather reporters/weather recorders; do not mention grade level here |
Subject: MD WX TUE 1/7/97 (#510)
SANDY SPRING FRIENDS SCHOOL (#510)
SANDY SPRING, MD
DATE 1/7/97 Tuesday
TIME 12:25pm EST
TEMP. 40 degrees Fahrenheit
UV 2 (highest value obtained)
WIND SPD not reported
WIND DIR not reported
CLOUDS cirrus and cumulus
SKY COVER (eighths) 2/8
SKY/CLOUD COLOR(S) BLUE 4, GRAY 1, WHITE 2
REMARKS - I don't think yesterday's UV reading was correct. We have learned to reread the meter. It is getting colder. We are waiting to see if we get snow this week.
Weather Reporter - Brian
We will be working on procedures for posting cloud and sky photos for selected schools at our web site. If you are interested in adding to this aspect of SAW, we'll need 72 dpi jpg images attached to your e-mail message. These can either be downloaded froma digital camera or scanned in from prints or slides. Let us know if you wish to share your cloud and sky photos.
If you are ready to join Sky Awareness Week, contact
HOW THE WEATHERWORKS.
We look forward to your participation in this project.
Comments to webmaster@weatherworks.com.
This page was last updated on November 15, 2001.