[Mail_supt] WeatherSTEM

[Debbie Husk]

Does your school’s STEM curriculum foster creativity, inspire innovation, and support pervasive curiosity? The North Central Ohio Educational Service Center has partnered with WeatherSTEM, a data-driven STEM curriculum designed for grades K-12.  Over
1,700 schools use WeatherSTEM as a platform to boost critical thinking and analytical reasoning.

Weather provides an excellent foundation for STEM education. It also provides opportunities for exposing students to topics from a plethora of disciplines in the scope of a single activity. Any weather situation, from the most benign scenario where a few
cumulus humilis clouds dot the sky to the most intense Category 5 hurricane, can turn into a discussion covering everything from algebra to zoology. 
The WeatherSTEM system is a weather station that measures temperature, barometric pressure, humidity, wind speed and direction, rainfall and rainfall rate, solar radiation, and ultraviolet radiation. Each station is easily integrated into social media
platforms like Twitter, Facebook, and Weather Underground. Teachers have tools that enable them to integrate weather data into their Lesson Plans and align them with relevant educational standards. Each weather station also has a data extraction tool.
Our vision is to introduce students to concepts of “Big Data” at the earliest grade levels possible. This would enable a science teacher to tell her students, “Go to our school’s weather station, and extract the last 2 weeks’ worth of temperature,
humidity, wind speed, and soil moisture data at 5-minute intervals. You will need this for our afternoon laboratory activity.”
Our global society is evolving into one where we need to encourage bright young minds to enter into STEM-related careers. Hopefully, WeatherSTEM can make a small contribution to that overall objective.  I would like to call upon you in the near future
and talk further about the benefits of WeatherSTEM.  In the meantime, if you would like more information about WeatherSTEM, please contact me at [ mailto:acampbell at ncoesc.org ]acampbell at ncoesc.org  or (419) 447-2927 extension 156.  If you are not the
right person to contact, could you please refer me to the person who is responsible for addressing this?~Thank you.

Andy Campbell, Distance Learning Coordinator
North Central Ohio Educational Service Center
928 W. Market Street
Tiffin, OH  44883
(419) 447-2927 extension 156
acampbell at ncoesc.org


Debbie Husk, Executive Director to the Superintendent
North Central Ohio ESC
928 West Market Street, Suite A
Tiffin, OH  44883
419-447-2927
Fax:  419-447-2825