The 7 Weather Almanac: Bringing Weather and Climate to the Community
When used by the general public, the word "Almanac" most often refers to "The Old Farmer's Almanac", a widely used yearly publication that weaves weather folklore and fact into a funfilled booklet. In the Boston television market we are redefining this commonly used weather catalog by creating our own yearly publication specific to southern New England. Our guide to weather and climate, the 7 Weather Almanac, is densely packed with educational weather content written and developed by our staff of meteorologists and local scientists and educators. Our interactive online version takes our educational efforts one step further. By drawing on the vast quatities of information available online, while developing some of our own original electronic segments, we address the dynamic nature of weather and its related variables in a way that a printed publication can not.
When we began our first publication in the summer of 1997 (eventually the 1998 7 Weather Almanac), it had been some 10 years since the last weather almanac for the Boston area had been available to the public. We reviewed numerous weather almanacs from across the country, including Bob Ryan's impressive long standing version, before deciding on a course of action. Through collaborative efforts with the National Weather Service in Taunton, local scientists, expert educators, graphic designers, web developers, and capital provided by local business, we distributed, for free, a quarter of a million, 64 page, 1998 7 Weather Almanacs. Copies were made available to all schools that requested them.
The printed version is designed to be an interactive guide to our online efforts. Each article in the printed version contains references to "icons" that are either educational or informational, or both, that provide additional information on the given topic. By clicking on the icon in the online version at www.7almanac.com, you are immediately linked to the latest discussion on El Nino or provided the current UV Index, for example.
Other elements developed in our electronic version assist in further exploration of weather and climate. We have developed a section called "Weather Archives." Here we provide a detailed account of any storm or extreme weather that has occured. Users have the choice of clicking on various dates and can review the weather event through graphics and text. "Class in the Clouds" is another segment developed by meteorology students at UMass Lowell for a course I taught this past year. Here students have created their own educational web site on such topics as temperature conversion, reading clouds, and atmospheric optics, to name just a few, all geared to K-12 education. An additional section is now in development called the "The Weather Window." This online addition to the 7 Weather Almanac will include a photo gallery of pictures capturing various atmospheric phenomenon, complete with a detailed account of the processes at work in text below the photo.
The 1999 7 Weather Almanac is currently in its developmental phase. We intend to refresh each article, update all climatological data, and develop additional educational technologies around the printed version. The Boston Public School System has promised to assist with the publication by providing science education experts that ensure current content standards are being attended to. We will be collaborating with The Children's Museum in Boston to develop a segment designed for kids ages 0-10 (their target age group) both in the printed version and online. We will also be developing teacher training workshops to be held next February that will make direct use of the data and information in the classroom.
We also hope to continue collaborative efforts with MCET (Massachusetts Center for Educational Telecommunications) by providing weather and climate ideas and information for their satellite programming in the classroom, through the 7 Weather Almanac.
The 1999 7 Weather Almanac will be available late this fall and will again be provided free of charge to the general public and educational institutions. Further innovative web development will ensure our goal, to create a document and interactive version specific to southern New England that inspires and educates the public about the wonders of weather and climate