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Teacher secures weather-station donation for sixth-grade open-science unit
Summary
A Harlem UD 122 teacher obtained donated weather stations (three with cameras and five more pending) to support a sixth-grade open-science weather unit; the board and staff praised the classroom initiative during public meeting remarks.
A Harlem Consolidated School District sixth-grade teacher described a classroom initiative to build an open-science weather unit after securing donated weather stations from the company BloomSky (which the transcript records as recently acquired by Nubila).
On the record, the teacher said she applied for a Golden Apple grant to obtain green-screen and media equipment and then contacted BloomSky (now described as Nubila) to request a weather station. The company’s CEO replied by donating three weather stations with cameras and pledging five additional stations without cameras to be sent later. The teacher said each camera-equipped station is worth about $300 and that the donations will total roughly $3,000 in supplies for the unit.
“I want my students to be able to experience weather in a new way and not just look at the data but look at our data and then be able to give weather reports and have them displayed in our TVs throughout the school,” the teacher said on the record. She said the curriculum will involve rotating responsibilities across the sixth-grade cohort: students will write scripts, study the data, shoot and edit video, and present weather reports on school displays.
Superintendent Roy Yarbrough and several board members praised the project during the communications portion of the meeting. Board member Michael McKnight told the group he valued hands-on or “alternative” learning approaches and highlighted the weather project as an example. Board members and staff also noted outreach plans already in progress, including invitations to local TV stations and a storm-chaser video contribution planned by a personal contact the teacher described as a storm chaser.
Clarifying details provided at the meeting: the donation includes three camera-equipped stations already delivered and five additional stations pending; each camera unit was described as worth about $300 and the teacher estimated about $3,000 total in donated supplies for the weather unit. The teacher also said the work will be shared across the entire sixth-grade team rather than limited to a single classroom.
The board encouraged the teacher to share materials and student work with board members when the program is running.
