Feb. 2, 2011
Mathew Decker and Sean O'Brien oversee the weather station at BKW Secondary School.
The real-time data the station collects is gathered on this computer.
Want real-time weather? It’s just a click away, thanks to the Davis Vantage Pro 2 Weather Station at the BKW Secondary School.
The automated process broadcasts data to the
BKW website every five seconds around the clock.
Some of the real-time data the station collects includes:
• Wind speed
• Barometric pressure
• Temperature
• Dew point
• Humidity
• Rainfall
• Wind direction
It is also equipped to signal an alarm in the event of high winds and
heavy rain.
“The data is collected and stored in a computer and archived online at
Weather Underground,” Earth Science teacher Mathew Decker said.
Decker, along with Earth Science teacher, Sean O’Brien oversee the
station.
“This is the third year of near-continuous data we’ve collected, which
can be accessed for classroom activities,” O’Brien added.
Students use the information in lab activities such as predicting rain
according to the pressure, studying conditions during an ice storm and
graphing data. It is also used as part of a Regents meteorology unit.
“It can be used for interpreting data, what do trends mean, looking at
slopes and changes,” Decker said. “We can get into climatology, and not
just what is happening, but what has happened. We can work toward
understanding trends.”
“It has many cross-curriculum applications in math and science,” O’Brien
added. “It also gives students a real-life connection versus using
hypothetical data.”
The information has use outside the classroom as well. The Weather
Services taps into the data collected at BKW and compares it to Albany
Airport to get a broader picture of the region, and the district (and
residents) can use it to compare oil and fuel costs with temperatures at
any given time.
For Decker and O’Brien, who both have backgrounds in meteorology, one of
the major benefits of the continuous collecting of data from an on-site
weather station is having a wealth of information for interpretation.
“Who knows what trends and changes we’ll see over the long term or may
be able to predict for the future,” Decker said.
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