The school has implemented a cutting-edge meteorology system from WeatherSTEM, donated by American Public University System.

WeatherSTEM is part of Ucompass, a Tallahassee-based software and services company supporting more than three million students at more than 200 educational institutions, including APUS. The Web-based platform combines data from weather instruments, agricultural probes, web cameras and other sensors, aligning with APUS’s commitment to creating immersive STEM education experiences featuring “Big Data” and programming.

In November 2016, the WeatherSTEM was also installed at Jefferson High School and Blue Ridge Elementary.

These stations measure weather conditions every minute, including solar and UV radiation, rain rate and rainfall, temperature and humidity and wind speed and direction.

“We feel very confident the program will resonate with students and teachers by adding an exciting new dimension to the county’s stellar STEM education efforts,” said Ed Mansouri, president and founder of WeatherSTEM in a press release. “We have now introduced the program along with our large volume of weather curriculum to three public schools in Jefferson County, with our most recent implementation being Ranson Elementary School.”

According to Debra Corbett, principal at Ranson Elementary, Ranson Council Member Donnie Haines was imperative to acquiring the Weather STEM station.

“He worked side-by-side with Conrad Lotze of APUS in acquiring the WeatherSTEM station that was installed at the beginning of October,” Corbett said. “We are really thankful to them and to have this station at our school. We are proud to be the third school in Jefferson County to have this technology at our disposal. This is a tool that will have a significant impact on student learning.”

Corbett said having the STEM station is beneficial to Ranson Elementary, because it is the sole “walking-only” school in Jefferson County.

“We think it’s very important because right now, most of our kids do not listen to the weather report in the morning and they may not always be prepared,” Corbett said. “We now have this tool and our ‘Hamill Vision’ program to have them more conscientious of things like the weather.”

Corbett said that “Hamill Vision” is a newly implemented program at Ranson Elementary utilizing the STEM station.

Students get the chance to report the daily announcements, the daily weather report and upcoming activities for the week.

Rob Perks, contractor for Ranson Elementary, recently started working with Corbett on Hamill Vision.

“We received a grant from the late mayor David Hamill before his passing, and he was very interested in the use of technology,” Perks said. “Mrs. Corbett brought to me the idea of having a space for technology at Ranson. We came up with a way to get the students involved with the STEMstation, by creating weather videos. We decided to film live announcements about current weather conditions and other related activity and then upload them to the front page of our school website for kids and their parents to check. I work with a team of about 14 students who help each week to put Hamill Vision videos together.”

Allison Bixler, fifth-grade science and social studies teacher at Ranson Elementary, said the STEM station is also imperative to student’s learning.

Bixler said students will be able to see real time data collected and use that in both science and math courses.

“I think having the STEMstation is really important to have in classrooms,” Bixler said. “We can incorporate these lessons into our meterology and space science unit, and also math classes. Last year, I incorporated some activities using the AP WeatherSTEM station site while were waiting for our own to be installed. Now, I plan to do all kinds of things with students from reporting data, to creating their own charts and graphs with the collected data, and also incorporating different writing activities from those data reports. I just think this is a great opportunity for our students.”

For more information on WeatherSTEM stations, visit https://jefferson-wv.weatherstem.com/ranson.

COMMENTS