Sports blog: Stamford Sports Scene
Sign up for Breaking News Alerts!

By LAUREN MYLO

Times Staff Writer


STAMFORD -- A map more frequently seen on the evening news now sits inside a Stamford classroom.

Students in King Low Heywood Thomas's new meteorology class use the weather map, which is projected on a SMART Board and connected to a new weather sensor on the school's roof, to predict the impending conditions themselves.

"It's really practical and relevant," said Gary Caputi, a King science teacher who taught students meteorology this fall. "All of a sudden the students are looking at maps and can tell me what the weather's going to be like in 12, 24 hours."

Student Gillian Potter said learning about meteorology has simply been fun.

"You get to learn about the weather, and we also get to learn to read graphs on the computer screen," the 17-year-old said. "Recently, we've been doing some projects -- we have to make a weather pamphlet that includes three cities, and you have to find the temperature, what causes the temperature, where the sun is at noon, the solstices and equinoxes. Mr. Caputi is a really great teacher."

The instructor, who noted his father was a meteorologist for the Air Force in WWII, said the subject has always interested him, and it's become an interest to others in the school as well.

During Homecoming weekend, the maintenance staff checked out the forecast. A King Spanish teacher is taking guesses from other staff members trying to predict the school's first snow day.

Caputi, who also teaches Advanced Placement biology, said he has mostly juniors and seniors in meteorology.

"It's going great," he said. "I've got 15 kids, which for the first year in a small school is pretty good."

One of the class's projects is a weather blog, kingweather.blogspot.com/.

"Once a week we go outside and take a picture for the blog of a cloud and write about what kind of weather the cloud predicts," said Stephanie Damascus, 17. "Now, whenever I go outside, I try to figure out what the clouds predict."

The school is also part of the Weather Underground, www.wunderground.com/. Typing in the zip code, 06905, will bring up King's radar.

"If you want to know what's going on here over the weekend, you can pull it up," said Caputi. "They don't have to be here to do work."

The students echo Caputi's enthusiasm when talking about the subject and also reiterate the concept that meteorology is a very practical subject.

"I think the class really helped us to predict the weather and I think that's a really important skill to have in my career," said Emma Bauman, 18. "No matter what you do, the weather's always there."

COMMENTING RULES: We encourage an open exchange of ideas in The Stamford Times community, but we ask you to follow our guidelines. Basically, be civil, smart, on-topic and free from profanity. Don't say anything you wouldn't want your mother to read! And remember: We may miss some, so we need your help to police these comments. Please identify the comment, the story and why you think it's objectionable.
Read the commenting guidelines

Add a new comment