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Weather station helps middle school with real-world science

Monday, November 22, 1999

By REBEKAH DENN Mail Author
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER

When the NetLander spacecraft approaches Mars in 2006, McClure Middle School students will be ready.

With a research-quality weather station wired to the school's roof, students are diving into a new science curriculum meant to bring real-world -- and otherworldly -- relevance to their studies.

At an open house for the new station on Friday, students used temperature and wind-speed data collected at their Queen Anne school to learn basic theories of Earth science and math.

Soon, with the help of partners from the University of Washington, they'll compare their local weather information with data from the 1997 Pathfinder Mars mission.

And in 2006, an agreement between a UW researcher and the European agency leading the NetLander Mars mission is expected to give them access to real-time Mars data that is typically embargoed for months.

Staff, as well as students, are excited about the possibilities, math teacher Judy Slattery said. Even the first forays into the lab work, where students are using local data, add depth and interest to the work, she said.

"It's our school -- our weather," agreed eighth-grader Brandy Seslar, who calculated time-honored math questions on mean, median and mode by using graphs of McClure weather information in the computer lab.

Her work partner, eighth-grader Peter Stone, liked having information about "where we are right now" instead of extrapolating weather data from gauges in more typical places, such as Tacoma and Bellevue.

Science has been "on the front burner" at McClure for some time, principal Phil Brockman said, but the unusually advanced weather station came about through some lucky connections and community help.

The first connection was research engineer David Warren, whose son, Erin, is a McClure sixth-grader. Warren works with Jim Tillman, a UW atmospheric scientist with a long-term involvement in both Mars missions and education.

The pair had helped develop a lower-tech weather station at McClure's sister school, Coe Elementary, four years ago. With Tillman's dream of developing a K-12 curriculum in mind, they then moved up to McClure.

With the help of the Coe station, students -- and adult researchers -- are able to compare the sometimes surprisingly different weather patterns in the few blocks separating the schools.

The UW scientists are also talking with Garfield and Ballard high schools in hopes of expanding the program.

Both UW and the McClure teachers are developing curricula related to the weather stations for possible duplication in other schools.

To do so at the same level, Slattery said, will take the sort of support and aid that McClure was lucky enough to have.

A round of donations and volunteer help put the necessary equipment in place at McClure, from Group Health contributing computers for the labs to Warren and other volunteers attaching the sensitive temperature gauges and other equipment to the roof.

The students who used the lab during Friday's open house will be in college by the time the live Mars data reaches the school. But Tillman thinks they'll be on track regardless, with the lessons they've learned.

He's always disappointed, he said, when students at his school presentations don't ask at least one question about his field that he can't answer.

"These young people are the ones who are going to help us figure it all out," he said.

P-I reporter Rebekah Denn can be reached at 206-448-8190 or rebekahdenn@seattle-pi.com

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