Fourth-graders help update their town on weather conditions

It is that time of year where weather starts to change drastically. In our First Alert center, we keep track of weather conditions and temperatures going on around eastern Idaho. Now one local classroom is starting to keep track, too.

“With Idaho’s weather, we have to watch it pretty close in the wintertime and see if it’s too cold, especially for the kids to go outside,” said Rondee Owens, a fourth-grade teacher at Parker-Egin Elementary School. “So I thought it’d be really fun to have a weather station here at school.”

Owens applied for a science, technology, education and math grant through the Idaho National Laboratory last year. She was approved for $2,000. With that money, Owens was able to purchase a weather station and various materials for hands-on experiments to teach her students about weather.

“I’ll just do the different activities, and like I said, we keep track of (the weather station),” Owens said. “We can graph the weather to incorporate math into, it also. We started a weather unit, which I’ll bring this into a lot.”

The fourth-grade class is able to keep the town of Parker up to date with the latest temperatures, highs and lows for the day, winds speeds and more on the school website.

“I’m the one who writes down the weather every single day before we leave school,” said Talan Jackson, a fourth-grader.

Owens said she has taught her students about weather before, but she expects this year’s lesson to bring the subject to life.

“They’ll get more into it as we get into the unit, because we just barely started this unit, but it’s fun for them,” Owens said. “I like to make learning fun.”