Weather team visits Hyde Park

On Wednesday, KTEN meteorologists Alana Cameron and David Siple visited the third graders at Hyde Park Elementary to talk with students about weather and the tools they utilize to create their forecasts. The students were introduced to a variety of weather measurement instruments including thermometers, a rain gauge, a barometer and an anemometer (which measures wind speed).

Third grade students only get to take one field trip per year. So, in this case, the field trip came to them. Hyde Park Elementary third grade teacher Amanda Daughtery reached out to KTEN last year to come to the school and do a presentation and wanted to have them back there again for this group of students. Having the actual meteorologists there makes the subject of weather that much more real for them and the students become that much more interested. The third graders studied weather instruments and the different types of clouds during the first semester. The KTEN team covered all of those same tools in the presentation and even gave a quiz on the clouds the students studied.

Students had many questions for the weather team. One student asked about how they get the satellite information to earth and another student wanted to about how weather apps work and how they get the information to people.

Mr. Siple demonstrated how to use the anemometer by blowing into it to measure how much wind he could produce. He shared with students that he had recently used the anemometer when he covered a grass fire scene so that he could determine how much the wind was pushing the fire.

According to the KTEN website, Ms. Cameron first started watching the weather when she was a young girl at her home in Canada. Mr. Siple knew he wanted to be a weatherman when he too was in third grade.