The cost of a remote weather station is $2039, including shipping and <a target="new" href="http://www.donorschoose.org/html/fulfillment.htm" onclick="g_openWindow('http://www.donorschoose.org/html/fulfillment.htm', 300, 800, 'fulfillwindow');return false;">fulfillment</a>.
This project is part of the Black History Month celebration because it supports a Black teacher or a school where the majority of the students are Black.
When you strive toward Excellence, as we do at our school, we try to make as many learning experiences out of the carefully purchased equipment we possess. As a school with a diverse, low-income population, we really do plan on getting the most 'bang for our bucks' in the purchases we make.
As a school of the 21st century, we really want to provide our students with real-world activities. One thing that would help us with that is a weather station that monitors the weather and can be accessed online. We currently use things such as Weatherbug to view other schools, and it just hurts to hear the students ask, "Why isn't our school on there." These students do so much with the little they have, this is one experience that we definitely want for them.
Some of the awesome learning experiences from this equipment include the ability to 'dump' the weather data into a spreadsheet or database and interpret the data. Teachers often struggle to devise activities that students can use spreadsheets and databases with. Sometimes the data used has no relevance to the students. Daily weather conditions, however, will provide a very relevant data set for the students to use. From kindergarten and first grade graphing daily temperatures or cloudy vs sunny, to fourht and fifth graders graphing the relationship between precipitation and humidity, these data sets will create many learning experiences. Product-based learning activities that truly stretch student thinking are all the rage, and this equipment will help in this respect. As students interpret the data, they can begin to draw larger hypothesis, such as the effect of greenhouse gases (which 4th and 5th graders study), weather phenomena such as El Nino and La Nina (which 2nd and 3rd graders study), and environmental concerns. Students will act as data collectors, checking the equipment regularly and we will also use the data on our daily news show. The opportunities for learning are limitless!
This will benefit all of our students, plus other schools across the world. As a school in 'Hurricane Alley,' we will definitely have the chance for our weather station to get a workout!
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As a teacher-founded nonprofit, we're trusted by thousands of teachers and supporters across the country. This classroom request for funding was created by Mr. S. and reviewed by the DonorsChoose team.