KOZHIKODE: In a first, weather stations will be set up in about 250 higher secondary and vocational higher secondary schools in the state. The project, envisioned by Samagra Shiksha Kerala (SSK), aims to assess climate change at the micro-level and collate data for higher-level analysis.
“The project will be launched in June -- the start of the next academic year,” said an SSK official, who requested anonymity. “Each school will have 13 pieces of equipment such as rain gauge, wind-wave, thermometer, monitor and weather databank. The handbook for geography teachers is getting ready.”
Notably, institutions such as the Centre for Water Resources Development and Management (Kozhikode) and Indian Meteorological Department (Thiruvananthapuram) have agreed to provide technical support.
The first weather station under Phase I is expected to be inaugurated at Vayala Vasudevan Pillai Memorial Government HSS in Kollam. In Kozhikode district, sources said, weather stations would come up at 18 government schools.
“The purpose is to decentralise the process of analysing climate change,” noted SSK Kozhikode district coordinator A K Abdul Hakeem. “The weather pattern may vary from one ward to the neighbouring ward at the local level. This has to be collated on a daily basis and subjected to serious analysis. This became pertinent in the wake of recurrent floods and landslides in our state.”
Hakeem believed this was a first-of-its-kind project at the school level in India. “Geography students will observe the amount of rain received, the pace of wind, atmospheric pressure, etc. every day, and upload the data to School Wiki and SSK websites. This micro-level data could be used by meteorologists and weather experts across the globe to arrive at a precise forecast,” he added.