Problem overview:

     Awareness and visions: The purpose of the Schools of the Pacific Rainfall Climate Experiment (SPaRCE) programme is to increase awareness of the younger generations on global environmental issues, such as climate change, with hope that these younger generations will become adults who care and will work collectively to protect the environment in future.

     Training and educational initiatives: Under SPaRCE programme, students in the Pacific islands our being educated with hands-on experience on an important environmental subject, climate change, by involving them in the data collection of rainfall.

     Meeting information requirements: Data on rainfall that have been collected by students will be sent to the Comprehensive Pacific Rainfall Database, one of the major databases in the Environmental Verification and Analysis Center (EVAC) within the College of Geosciences in Oklahoma, USA.

Background:

      Schools joining global scientific research programmes

      Nothing, absolutely nothing, leads to environmental understanding and commitment like helping out with a major scientific effort. The GLOBE project unites schools with scientists around the world to study a wide range of scientific parameters. This is just one of their many programmes.

      160 Schools are participating with the Schools of the Pacific Rainfall Climate Experiment (SPaRCE), a programme of scientific investigations on climate change run by the University of Oklahoma. The co-operative field project involves elementary school, middle school, high school, college, and trade school students and teachers from various Pacific island and atoll nations. Students have the opportunity to "enhance their education by involvement in a hands-on, scientifically valid research program, in which the science of meteorology is presented in connection with its applications to technology, and the implications of climate change brought about by human activities is discussed as it applies to individuals and to society as a whole." (Postawko 1997).

      The project sends each participating group 2 direct-read rain gauges, workbooks, a disposable camera, and a video taped lecture (for those schools that have electricity and the necessary equipment). The first video and workbook introduce the SPaRCE program and describe how to site the rain gauges and other meteorological equipment, and how to take daily measurements. Approximately every 2 months schools receive subsequent workbooks and videos on a variety of topics.

      Videos are an effective means with which to demonstrate the use of basic meteorological instrumentation as well as hands-on activities and experiments. However, because of the limitations on electricity in many parts of the Pacific, workbooks have been developed to either accompany the videos or to be used as stand-alone material. The workbooks include simple exercises and experiments for the students, as well as questions to aid the teacher in leading classroom discussions.

      Students make daily readings of rainfall, log their readings on the data sheet provided, and send their data back to the SPaRCE office at the University of Oklahoma on a monthly basis. As a few schools cannot even afford the monthly postage charges, postage coupons must be sent to some schools so that the data may be returned. The single-use camera sent to each school is used to document the rain gauge sites and take pictures of the school grounds and participants. The camera is returned to Oklahoma for developing and printing, with one set of prints used in the data archives and one set sent back to the students. The pictures are also used in the SPaRCE newsletter and on their World Wide Web site (http://gulfstream.ou.edu/sparce/sparce.htm).

      Once the rain gauges have been set up, and data have been received regularly for several months, students are sent a sling psychrometer to add relative humidity measurements to their daily routine. After another few months, students are then sent a maximum/minimum thermometer to complete their set of meteorological instrumentation. These particular measurements were chosen because the instrumentation is relatively inexpensive and easy to use, and because single daily measurements of rainfall and max/min temperature are useful in studying global climate and climate change.

      Data received in Oklahoma are incorporated into the Comprehensive Pacific Rainfall Database, one of the major databases in the Environmental Verification and Analysis Center (EVAC) within the College of Geosciences. In addition to the SPaRCE program, daily rainfall totals are obtained from the New Zealand Meteorological Service (NZ), the French Polynesian Meteorological Service (FrP), and from the National Climatic Data Center (US).

      The program was carefully designed to require minimal training of participating teachers. While on-site instruction is certainly desirable, to require extensive training before allowing a teacher to participate in SPaRCE may discourage some otherwise qualified teachers from joining the program. Participation in SPaRCE is purely voluntary, and all interested teachers are invited to join.

      There are currently 130 schools and technological centres participating in SPaRCE, representing the United States as well as countries across Polynesia, Micronesia, and Melanesia. Participants come from elementary and middle schools, high schools, trade schools, colleges and community colleges, in both the public and private sectors. In addition, the Meteorological Services in the Solomon Islands and Samoa are using the SPaRCE program as part of their training for new weather observers. The meteorological services of the various island nations have been very co-operative and have provided direct assistance to the students. Several have even provided additional rain gauges to the schools. Some meteorological services are incorporating the data into their own meteorological networks.

      A key to the success of the SPaRCE program has been monthly question/answer sessions between the Oklahoma investigators and the Pacific participants through the PEACESAT (Pan-Pacific Communications and Education by Satellite) telecommunications facility, located on the campus of the University of Hawaii in Honolulu. One of the purposes of the monthly radio sessions is to answer questions by students and teachers about science concepts, about curricular material, or about the program. These radio sessions provide an exciting avenue for teachers and students to exchange information not only on how the program is being used in their classrooms, but equally important, to exchange information about their cultures and lifestyles. These exchanges help to emphasize the global nature of climate.

      In addition to communication via PEACESAT, participants are sent a newsletter approximately 6 times per year. These newsletters feature new SPaRCE participants, letters and stories from old SPaRCE participants, frequently asked questions (about any aspect of science), and a report on a timely climate-related topic (e.g., a typically active hurricane season; El Nino; current state of the ozone hole; etc.). Students whose submissions are used in the newsletter are sent a SPaRCE tee shirt.

      The SPaRCE program allows teachers to increase the quality of their science education programs by bringing up-to-date information on climate and climate change into the classroom. By involving students in a real science program in which they make measurements of environmental parameters and share their data with scientists and students in other parts of the world, students become aware of their environment. This awareness empowers them to make choices, which will determine what kind of world will be left to future generations. "The SPaRCE program involves students in a technological program which teaches the scientific method, increases their awareness of their environment, and illustrates the need for a worldwide collective consensus to protect future life on Earth."