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'Weather' Delights Cayuga Students
Channel 2 News meteorologist Andy Parker brought the four seasons to Cayuga Heights Elementary as the school’s prize for winning the station’s Weather Word challenge.
The “Weather Machine” simulated four seasons and showcased weather that happens during spring, summer, fall and winter. Two performances were given on Dec. 14; one for kindergarten, first- and second-grade and another for third-, fourth- and fifth-grade.
Parker chose random students from the audience to go into the weather machine.
“They absolutely loved it,” said Michelle Kudla, principal, adding that Parker’s presentation was also a good science lesson on weather for the kids. He talked about different aspects of meteorology and how scientists send up a weather balloon into the atmosphere with various equipment to record and measure weather.
Even before Parker’s visit, the students were preparing. They learned the definition of many weather terms during their successful effort to win a visit from the weather machine.
From mid-October to mid-November, visitors to the Channel 2 Web site could plug in a different weather word each day and vote for Cayuga Elementary School. Cayuga was announced the winner on Monday, November 16. They competed against many school districts across Western New York.
“Channel 2 won't tell us how many votes were cast in total, but they did say it was a herculean effort,” said Mrs. Peszko, who got the school involved with the project. “The idea started in my third-grade classroom that I share with Mrs. George. Excitement quickly spread throughout the school and the whole Cayuga staff was excited,” she said.
In third grade, the contest helped prepare students for a future unit in weather. There was a daily weather word forum where students had classroom discussions about the word of the day.
“We talked about if the word really matched the weather outside. We also talked about new or unfamiliar words. We learned new words such as graupel, (which is soft hail), and low pressure,” said Mrs. Peszko.
Every morning, Mrs. Peszko sent an email with the weather word to teachers in each building. The word was posted on the district Web site. Letters went home explaining the contest to parents. Students wrote the word in their agendas each night, so they could vote at home. Mr. Weibel created little notes with the word that went home daily with every child.
The excitement could be seen throughout the school, also. There was a display at the front of the school. Classrooms put up raindrops and lightning bolts on a large cloud depending on how many votes the classroom tallied.
All these activities helped increase the excitement. Andy Parker from Channel 2 really liked it too!
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