ALBERTON - This week's One Class at a Time winner is Katy Cannon who teaches fifth grade at Alberton School.
She's planning on buying something that will help her students connect with the land they live on.
“Out in a rural community in the mountains like Alberton, there’s no escaping the daily fact of the weather — so we might as well make that the content of our lessons as well," Cannon explained.
Cannon will use her $250 towards installing a basic weather station outside at the Alberton School.
It's the type of station you might see in someone’s backyard or on the farm, with a rain gauge, a thermometer, and a windsock.
“I think it’s important that kids go collect their own data and that just doesn’t all come to them from a website," Cannon shared.
The weather station will be hands-on learning that’s fun, in the outdoors, and it’s pretty practical.
Other students and classes at Alberton will have access to the station as well.
“It’s something that the kids can go lift up and look at the rain in their hand, and dump it, note it down, and make graphs on graph paper,” said Cannon.
Cannon ultimately hopes the weather station will help her fifth grade students to develop the habit of keeping their eyes to the skies.
“I don’t think the kids realize how close to the land that they really do live out here in their daily lives and that will be a resource for them as they grow and leave here — to realize they’re very intimately connected to the daily weather patterns," Cannon concluded.