WeatherStem Helps Teach Kids 'AgriScience'

Tolland, CT, July 15, 2015 – Tolland High School is making progress in the area of STEM Education every day by integrating important engineering design concepts into their science curriculum. It makes scientific phenomena real and kids love it!

Now, Tolland High School a public school where the future focus is on science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM), is the first in New England to have its own Weather STEM station. The project began in Florida and is now extending into other states. The station includes traditional weather instruments, as well as probeware to measure soil temperature and the conditions in the school’s greenhouse.

“Parents will love it. They will know how to dress their kids in the morning,” says Susan Fontaine, the school’s science department chair. “It’s not a generic weather forecast for your area. It’s specific for our school.”

As one might guess, hands-on learning is a priority in the district for kindergarten through twelfth graders. WeatherSTEM was installed July 15th, and the entire school system will use it. “We’ll collect data,” says Stephanie Cassidy, a sixth grade teacher at the middle school on Falcon Way in Tolland. “I’ll be teaching students how to use a weather site.”

WeatherSTEM data is available instantly 24 hours a day, seven days a week. People can visit a website and get the weather; WeatherSTEM alerts are also available through a Facebook application. Its cloud camera takes a picture every minute - and produces a movie at the end of the day.

“We’ve brought WeatherSTEM so far to 19 counties,” says WeatherSTEM chief executive officer and founder, Edward Mansouri, who holds a master’s degree in Meteorology from Florida State University. “We’re still in the early stages.”

For more information on Tolland High School and WeatherSTEM please use the links below:

Weather STEM:https://www.weatherstem.com/

Tolland High School WeatherSTEM page: https://tolland.weatherstem.com/ths

WeatherSTEM is powered by Ucompass, a Tallahassee-based educational software company who has authored the LMS software used by Florida Virtual School since 2003.