Week 1: Post-trip Report
Arctic Wednesday - Post Trip Blog
1/18/19
I am so very thankful for the opportunity I had today! Living in Gorham I appreciate the mountains and I’m always amazed at their beauty. I love to hike and be outdoors but I never imagined I would be on the top of Mt. Washington in January!! I have hiked Mt. Washington a handful of times and I ran in the race up the auto road in 2014. When my colleague Kelly mentioned a chance of riding up in the snowcat to learn more about weather data collection I was eager to apply and thrilled when I received the email that we were selected to go!
The weather forecast for the day was predicting mostly cloudy conditions with scattered snow showers. The ride up seemed to take a LONG time. It was fun though because I had never seen the snowcat and it is a pretty sweet ride! We had somewhat cloudy conditions for most of the ride. It seemed to want to clear part way up and the sun made a quick appearance but it then got really cloudy and visibility was tough!
When we arrived at the top we were told that we would have to rearrange the schedule because they were worried about getting down the mountain. We spent about an hour and a half on top of the mountain. It was exciting!! We got to learn why Mt. Washington gets such bad weather and see some of the instruments used to gather weather data. My favorite is the Hays chart which records wind speeds. The top gust of the day for far was at approximately 7 am. We were able to gear up and go on the observation deck, up the tower and walk out to the summit sign! The wind was blowing at about 60-70 miles per hour, I cannot imagine what 80+ would feel like. I was finding it tricky to walk out to the summit sign. It was nice to talk to the people that work on top of the mountain and feel their passion for weather science. I am so amazed at what takes place around the clock and I am beyond excited to look at some of the data available online with our 7th grade students.
I teach 7th grade math and Kelly teaches 7th grade science. We are doing a World’s Fair Learning Expedition with the 7th grade team and we are planning to have students compare the weather in the region of the world that they have been assigned to the weather on Mt. Washington. We are very interested in having the students develop a question that they wish to research using the years of data that has been collected. We plan to have them produce graphs and make inferences. Sadly we were not able to Skype with our students as originally planned but the Ian (educational coordinator) did and the students enjoyed that learning experience. We also have arranged a guest speaker from the observatory to visit our school in early February so that we can learn even more.
Coming down the mountain actually went quicker than expected but everyone was glad to get down safely. We stopped at about 4000 feet and got out (we did this on the ride up as well). There were some interesting clouds and a nice view of the valley below. Overall, it was an awesome day! I love to learn about what happens at 6,288 feet and it really makes me appreciate the weather data that we have access to and the research that is done regularly. Thank you to everyone that helped make this trip possible. It was a very positive and rewarding experience that I will be able to share with my students for years. Living in Gorham makes it that much more exciting for us because the mountain is in our backyard! I look forward to using weather data with my students to get them excited about graphs and making inferences about our world and the climate.
A few pictures from our day:
1/18/19
When we arrived at the top we were told that we would have to rearrange the schedule because they were worried about getting down the mountain. We spent about an hour and a half on top of the mountain. It was exciting!! We got to learn why Mt. Washington gets such bad weather and see some of the instruments used to gather weather data. My favorite is the Hays chart which records wind speeds. The top gust of the day for far was at approximately 7 am. We were able to gear up and go on the observation deck, up the tower and walk out to the summit sign! The wind was blowing at about 60-70 miles per hour, I cannot imagine what 80+ would feel like. I was finding it tricky to walk out to the summit sign. It was nice to talk to the people that work on top of the mountain and feel their passion for weather science. I am so amazed at what takes place around the clock and I am beyond excited to look at some of the data available online with our 7th grade students.
I teach 7th grade math and Kelly teaches 7th grade science. We are doing a World’s Fair Learning Expedition with the 7th grade team and we are planning to have students compare the weather in the region of the world that they have been assigned to the weather on Mt. Washington. We are very interested in having the students develop a question that they wish to research using the years of data that has been collected. We plan to have them produce graphs and make inferences. Sadly we were not able to Skype with our students as originally planned but the Ian (educational coordinator) did and the students enjoyed that learning experience. We also have arranged a guest speaker from the observatory to visit our school in early February so that we can learn even more.
Coming down the mountain actually went quicker than expected but everyone was glad to get down safely. We stopped at about 4000 feet and got out (we did this on the ride up as well). There were some interesting clouds and a nice view of the valley below. Overall, it was an awesome day! I love to learn about what happens at 6,288 feet and it really makes me appreciate the weather data that we have access to and the research that is done regularly. Thank you to everyone that helped make this trip possible. It was a very positive and rewarding experience that I will be able to share with my students for years. Living in Gorham makes it that much more exciting for us because the mountain is in our backyard! I look forward to using weather data with my students to get them excited about graphs and making inferences about our world and the climate.
A few pictures from our day:
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