What's the weather like?
Overview
Teacher details:
Content omitted
Scientific/Engineer partner details:
Content omitted
Relevant qualifications and/or experience:
Content omitted
Title for the project:
What’s the weather like?
Has either partner applied for a Partnership Grant before?
If yes, please list which years:
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No
Summary and description:
This project aims to give students rich, realistic opportunities to explore how scientists really work
and the impact that they have on the community, as well as developing their understanding around
the science of meteorology.
The research will focus initially upon data collection, where the students and STEM partner will
use the weather equipment within the school grounds to monitor daily rainfall, wind speed and
direction, humidity, air pressure and temperature. This will then be collated and analysed by the
students. Not only does this allow their scientific skills to be developed but also to again give clear
context and purpose to learning about data handling, statistics and measures within the
mathematics curriculum. It is also intended that the students will have the opportunity to create
models to begin to predict weather and create their own weather forecasts.
Locally there has been persistent issues with flooding. We aim to give the children the opportunity
to visit flooding sites and measure river levels, discuss the flooding situation and look at the flood
defences. We then aim to take this back into the classroom and investigate the drainage of
different landscapes and then create models that could prevent the flooding.
It's important to also note that we see this partnership lasting beyond the year and that we will
invest time in developing our staff to enable them to provide this opportunity as an entitlement to
all year 5 (ages 9 - 10) students as they pass through the school.
Intended learning outcomes:
By working with the STEM partner, we aim to demonstrate a passion and inspire the students, as
well as showing them that science is a discipline that requires patience, determination, resilience.
We can give students purpose to their learning of data collection and interpretation. It is well
documented that giving children a rich purpose and context for their learning provides a higher
quality of learning.
The specific skills we will endeavour to develop within the children are:
•Making measurements, using a range of scientific equipment, with increasing accuracy and
precision, taking repeat readings when appropriate.
•Recording data and results of increasing complexity using scientific diagrams and labels,
classification keys, tables, scatter graphs, bar and line graphs.
•Using test results to make predictions to set up further comparative and fair tests.
•Reporting and presenting findings from enquiries, including conclusions, causal relationships and
explanations of and degree of trust in results, in oral and written forms such as displays and other
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presentations.
The project will also develop the student's understanding of the phenomenon of weather. This
opportunity to show them the science behind awe and wonder cannot be articulated through
curriculum objectives.
By working with the STEM partner, the students will also gain an appreciation of those that work in
STEM and how what they learn in the class room relates to the world around us.
What is the investigative component of the project?:
A crucial part of this project is that it will last throughout the academic year, starting in the July
before the student move into year 5 whilst learning about the water cycle.
The project is based on giving the students collecting the data that they can use to create weather
predictions and forecasts. They will be carrying out comparative and fair tests and will draw
conclusions based on their data and use their scientific knowledge and understanding to explain
their findings.
Students will be:
•Collecting data on weather, taken from the weather station. This includes humidity, wind speed,
rainfall pressure and temperature. This will be recorded remotely every 15 minutes using a
computer connection. This will allow the students to collect a lot of data at times when they are
not at school or in lesson.
•Recording river speed, to compare with rainfall, to identify what weather makes a river flow faster,
such as more rain.
•Recording water drainage through mock environments, to compare with rainfall.
•Recording data on field trips to analyse river speed and height in different seasons and weather
conditions.
•Identify methods for flood defence at field trip and use their observations of the flood defences at
Bradford on Avon to think of other methods of defence against the weather, such as wind storms,
lightning etc.
•Analysing collected data, including from the weather station, to make predictions on the weather.
This will be done by making comparisons between seasons, time of day and related weather
situations. The STEM partner will assist in this, to help demonstrate weather patterns from their
specialist knowledge. For example, using information based on humidity and wind speed to
predict if it will rain in the upcoming week, for example.
We will then compare this data to the regional and national data.
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Start date:
06 Jul 2015
End date:
22 Jul 2016
Are there any other STEM professionals involved in the project?:
No
Headteacher's name:
Content omitted
Headteacher's email address:
Content omitted
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Costs
Size of grant:
2065
Total cost of project and potential additional funders:
£3,625.
The additional cost is teacher cover for the lead school partner. The school has agreed to cover
this cost (£1560).
Item name
Digital Weather
station
Quantity
1
Unit cost (£)
1,300.00
Total (£)
1,300.00
Coach travel for 3
field trips
1
600.00
600.00
Wood
1
80.00
80.00
Soil trays and
composts
1
30.00
30.00
Thermometers
4
13.79
55.16
Grand total (£):
2,065.16
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Justification
To obtain accurate
readings for use in
data collection and
comparison/forecas
ting
This will enable
students to visit
rivers an monitor
levels and see
impact of rainfall
For making
table/stand to hold
trays for soil run off
monitoring
experiment
To use in data
collection of mock
environments
For recording
temperature on
field trips
Involvement
Year of study and approximate number of core participants:
England and Wales
Scotland
N. Ireland
Core
Total per year
R
P1
P1
60
0
1
P2
P2
60
0
2
P3
P3
70
0
3
P4
P4
65
0
4
P5
P5
65
0
5
P6
P6
70
70
6
P7
P7
65
0
7
S1
S8
0
0
8
S2
S9
0
0
9
S3
S10
0
0
10
S4
S11
0
0
11
S5
S12
0
0
12
S6
S13
0
0
13
S7
S14
0
0
Total number of core pupils involved:
455
Total number of pupils in school:
70
Will any other pupils be involved in the project (secondary
participants)?:
Not in the first year of running the project, but we will look into the potential to expand thereafter.
How are pupils selected?:
All of the year 5 (ages 9 - 10) cohort of approximately 70 students will be involved .
We have chosen year 5 specifically as we believe that they have the capacity and the
understanding to appreciate the work that the STEM partner does and to make genuine links
between their experiences and the real world. The curriculum has a large emphasis on data
collection and handling. This project gives these children a meaningful and purposeful, sustainable
experience of these skills.
Will any other schools be involved?:
We are a split site school and year 5 students on both sites will be participating in the project. Both
sites will have a weather research area and will gather and analyse daily data separately and then
compare and combine findings.
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Planning
STEM partner's involvement:
I will initially discuss the importance of data collection with the students and will also set the
context of the project and discuss my role in the world of hydrology engineering.
After this I will then make termly visits to support the student's analysis of their findings. I will
provide e-mail support for the students, receiving an e-mail each fortnight. I will provide the school
partners with technical advice about the planning of the project and how it might need to modified
over time.
Activity
Launch of the project
Student monthly sessions to analyse
data
Final data analysis
End of project sharing day
E-mail support to school partners
and students
Time spent per session
3 hours
3 hours
Frequency?
Once
Monthly
3 hours
7 hours
1 hour
Once
Once
Fortnightly
Activity
Launch of project with
students and staff (and
governors and volunteers
who will also be support)
Learning the water cycle and
complete water
reducing/awareness
activities
Teaching students to use
weather station
Students work in small
groups to collect data
Student monthly sessions
with partners to analyse data
Field trip to River Biss to
collect samples and monitor
the river
Who involved?
Core students, school and
STEM partners
Total time spent (estimate):
50 hours
Timeline for the project:
Date
7 July 2015
6 - 10 July 2015
7 July 2015
4 September 2015 - July 2016
4 September 2015 - July 2016
Autumn 2015
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Core students and school
partners
Core students, school and
STEM partners
Core students and school
partners
Core students, school and
STEM partners
Core students and school
partners
Winter 2016
Summer 2016
Autumn 2015
June 2016
July 2016
Field trip to River Biss to
collect samples and monitor
the river
Field trip to River Biss to
collect samples and monitor
the river
Field trip to Bradford on
Avon to see flood defences
and carry out stream survey.
Students will use data they
have collected to explore
and use models
End of project sharing day,
involving school governors
and local community.
Core students and school
partners
Core students and school
partners
Core students and school
partners
Core students, school and
STEM partners
Core students, school and
STEM partners
Evaluation:
We already use methods to assess our student’s ability to work scientifically and will be utilising
this for our project.
Students at the end of year 4 (ages 8 - 9) have baseline assessments in the areas of data
collection, interpretation and representation of evidence will be taken. This will be taken through
observations, their learning recorded in books and digitally (videos, soundbites etc.) in a planned
investigation.
Throughout the year we will see how the students are progressing and then take a summary of
how the children have progressed from the baseline year 4 data.
Additionally, we will interview the students, teachers, parents and the scientist about their
experiences. Using the language of 'what went well' and 'even better if', we will gain a clear picture
of the impact that the project has had upon the students. We will use the responses from this and
the data, to then inform whether the intended outcomes were achieved.
Project legacy:
We will have several mechanisms for showcasing the students learning within the project.
•Regular forecast on our school radio station: students will be able to broadcast once a month. In
addition to giving a seven-day forecast, students will be interviewed about their findings, data
patterns and additional projects. This will also be shared with the wider community through the
school website.
•Students will also contribute to the student run newsletter, the Badger Times, which is
published four times a year. Students will also be able to use this to ask other students questions
about weather, to assist in their weather investigation.
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•Sessions for parents to come and share student learning. We will also invite the STEM partner
and the school governors, where we will present the student's findings in an exhibition style.
•The school is part of an academy trust and, if successful, we have the capacity to disseminate
and then replicate the project across the trust (2 further primary schools).
•The lead school partner is also part of a science hub for all 22 schools in the local area. The
findings of this project, along with the impact will also be shared here. The lead school partner will
then be able to support other schools in developing similar projects in their own settings.
Any other information related to the planning of the project:
Governors and parent volunteers are very keen to support the project.
We have an established and safe area of the grounds that is suitable for the set up of the station.
The headteacher and the teaching school both support the project and can and will provide time
and resources to ensure the project is successful for the pupils.
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Other
How did you hear about the Partnership Grants Scheme?:
Word of mouth, through a STEM education colleague.
Are you planning to submit the project for a CREST award?:
No
Is your school a member of the STEM Clubs network?:
No
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Quotes, proof of costs and market research for items more than £100 omitted for exemplar
application.