Weather for kids

Weather Whys
By Ted Shapiro

This column is, of course, called “Weather Whys,” and this time, it’s the Weatherman who has a “why’”!

Why don’t we have more intensive weather hazard education in our elementary schools?

My recent column, The Serious Six, detailed weather hazards which County residents are most likely to experience, any one of which can be be deadly. However, in polling my UMPI students about their elementary school years, I was told that there was not a real focus (from grades 3 through 5) on the actual County hazards we were learning about. I believe that if a strong emphasis were to be placed on them during a weather unit in elementary school, it would go a long, long way in developing weather-savvy kids (who then grow up to become weather-savvy adults!). Fewer lives put at risk. A good thing.

And some good news: I am now a Weather-Ready Nation Ambassador, a designation conferred by the National Weather Service. WRN ambassadors educate communities about how to recognize dangerous weather situations and avoid them. (Perfect example: cars get swept into raging streams by just 18 inches of flowing water, because people have no idea the water only needs to be that deep to do that!) Why not get this kind of information to our young people, so that the safety message can get ingrained at an early age?

Now as a Weather Ready Nation Ambassador, I give numerous talks over the course of a year. Unfortunately, and I have written this before, when I give my public weather safety talks, irrespective of the hour or the day, there are very few school-age kids there, even though I always contact schools, scout leaders, and anyone else I can think of who might be able to get students there. But every time, it is mostly adults. So we have to get it to the kids!

My suggestion is that life-saving weather hazard information be introduced at the 3rd grade level, and then strongly reinforced in grades 4 and 5.

With focus, there can be progress. Years ago, a young Maine girl, playing soccer in New Brunswick, was killed by lightning, from a storm miles away. Following that tragedy, all of the students I now meet know the basic lightning safety rules.

But remember, lightning is just ONE of the Serious Six I wrote about!

I would be delighted to be contacted by school officials to discuss ways in which we might bring a more rigorous weather hazard education to our young people.

My email address follows this column.

Thanks for reading, and thanks in advance to the good people of Aroostook County for their consideration of this concept.