Pupils at a Liverpool school will be keeping a keen eye on the weather in the future.
Norman Pannell School in Netherley has recently acquired a weather station enabling pupils not only to record the weather but to produce forecasts.
Interest in weather conditions among the pupils has developed through their involvement in learning about flood risk in the area and measures to reduce the effects of flooding.
The primary school is close to the Woodland Estate, and has been involved with the City Council and the National Flood Forum in rolling out a flood resilience project –
funded by the Department for the Environment.
As properties in the estate, bordering Netherley Brook have experienced repeated flooding, it was chosen to be a flood resilience community pathfinder scheme, one of only 13 such projects across the country.
The scheme involved adding property level resistance measures to some at-risk properties and raising flood awareness on the estate including creating a local flood action group. Local schools including Norman Pannell were also involved with classes learning about flood risk and helping plant trees which will, in turn, naturally help towards flood management.
Pupils took the flood awareness messages, learnt through various sessions with council officers, the National Flood Forum and Valley Community Theatre back to the classroom with them. They created flood information leaflets and also held assemblies to showcase what they had learnt to fellow pupils and their families.
To recognise their hard work and involvement, City Council’s emergency planners donated the weather station to the school. It will help the schoolchildren to be aware and prepared for emergencies and extreme weather events.
Sarah Parkington, Community Flood Resilience Officer at the National Flood Forum, recently presented an assembly to the school which focused on the importance of weather and how it affects us all, from simply deciding what to wear to the more serious issues of weather including whether it is safe to travel.
Headteacher Mr Rob Simpson also spoke about how the weather station, which is now proudly in the school grounds, works. The station can not only record but also predict the weather. The children learnt how to compare data from different dates and this information can used in a variety of topics, from science, geography and maths although it was suggested from one of the pupils the most beneficial information from the station would be to decide if it was sunny enough to play out!
