On Friday, November 25, the General Education Minister V Sivankutty conducted the district level inauguration of the innovative initiative to install weather stations in Kozhikode at the Kayanna Government Higher Secondary School. As many as 240 schools in Kerala will install weather stations soon.
This initiative helps in recording daily changes in weather conditions in the state and this is considered to be a first of its kind initiative in the country. This aims to train younger generation to understand climatic changes and take necessary precautions in this regard in the wake of recurring natural disasters including floods in the southern state, as stated in a report by PTI.
Speaking at the occasion, the Minister said that the General Education Department has already begun the process of setting up weather monitoring stations in 240 schools in the state and it is a first-of-its-kind initiative in the country. With the help of these centres, students will have first-hand knowledge and understanding of what they have learnt from textbooks on weather, he added. "Daily changes in atmospheric conditions will be monitored and recorded through the school weather stations. Thus, every child can be made a weather observer. The data collected will be used for further research," he said.
Further giving more details about this initiative, the minister said that each school weather station would have 13 devices including a rain gauge, thermometer, weather data bank and so on. And in Kozhikode, the weather stations are being set up in 18 government higher secondary schools in the district where geography is an optional subject.
What are the children supposed to do? They would observe the amount of rain received in the area, speed of the wind, atmospheric pressure and record it in a special chart. Also, the data obtained from the school weather stations will be recorded by students in a separate chart. For this purpose, special training would be imparted to geography students and teachers as part of the project, the Minister added, as stated in a report by PTI.
