The Sun
Sunnyvale's Newspaper

Photograph by Robert Scheer

KPIX recently donated a weather antenna and other equipment to Sunnyvale's Cumberland Elementary School, where information will be gathered for the daily weather forecast. Pictured are Cumberland students Heather Yi, Katie Burrows and Lemare Yi, all fifth-graders.

Rain or shine, Cumberland's on the job

Local school gets weather equipment from KPIX

By Katherine Petersen

Channel 5 announced that the high temperature at Cumberland Elementary School in Sunnyvale was 82 degrees last Monday. How did the weatherman know that? Well, Cumberland is now an official weather station for KPIX, and the television station will regularly use data gathered at the school in its weathercasts.

KPIX, the CBS affiliate, has donated weather-sensing roof antennaes to 16 sites in the Bay Area, including six elementary schools. The equipment is worth about $4,000.

B.C. Gibbons, a fifth-grade teacher at Cumberland, found the application for a weather station while surfing on the Web and filled it out on a whim. To qualify for the program, schools were required to have a computer and access to the Internet.

"I never thought we'd actually get it," she said.

Channel 5 is the first business to do this type of educational program in Northern California. KPIX will hold a kick-off ribbon-cutting at Cumberland May 27.

Gibbons loves the idea because kids at all grade levels will be able to learn from the weather station.

"It's a great way to teach hands-on science that's real-life practical," she said. "You can even get kindergartners involved in the weather."

The station is also hoping the Cumberland name will draw Sunnyvale residents to tune in for the weather on KPIX.

The students will gather data and report their findings to KPIX, so the station can then put the information in its weathercasts, Gibbons said.

The "Automated Weather System" is designed to measure temperature, humidity, barometric pressure, wind speed and rainfall. Gibbons hopes to see the equipment's permanent display in the school's library window.

Students will also be able to share weather information with other schools throughout the country via the Internet.

Starting next year, Gibbons and other Cumberland teachers will teach weather as part of their classes with the help of a comprehensive curriculum provided by KPIX.

"While weather is taught in all schools, most schools are unable to purchase professional weather equipment," said Channel 5 meteorologist Brian Sussman. "Not only will this equipment produce accurate information, but it will inspire many students to take an interest in the sky and perhaps, for the first time, they will begin to look up."

Gibbons said the teachers aren't quite ready to teach the curriculum yet. "They will have to learn it first," she said. "We will be able to use graphs and comparison. I'd like to see my students pick five cities and track their weather either weekly or every other week," she said.

Cumberland, along with other schools in the program, has a page on the PIXPage, Channel 5's Web site at www.kpix.com/weather.

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This article appeared in the Sunnyvale Sun, May 21, 1997.
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