Students become weather experts at school meteorology station

AMMAN – When 14-year-old Ghada Hammad used to hear the weather forecast every morning before class at her school, she became curious about how meteorologists produce their forecasts and make them available to the public. 

After her school, the Islamic Scientific College (ISC), opened a meteorology station on its premises in cooperation with Arabia Weather, Hammad had the chance to see for herself how it is all done.

“I became my family’s reliable source for the weather forecast,” she said with a smile. 

Hammad is among 28 students taking part in the school’s meteorology station, the first to be opened in a school in Jordan, which was officially launched this year on October 11.  

The idea of running a meteorology activity at the school is not new, said Randa Nabulsi, the principal of the girls’ section.

“There is a meteorology club affiliated with the environment safety club at the school that has been active during the past two years, but there was also a proposal to do something different that could further benefit the students,” she told The Jordan Times in an interview at the station. 

The school official said the new station saved her students valuable time because they used to go to a meteorology centre far from the school and arranging the visits required “a lot of measures”.

A total of 3,000 girls study at the school’s branch in Jabal Amman and there are 6,000 girls enrolled across the two locations of the school, according to Nabulsi.

She said the centre will enable students to learn about the mechanisms of weather forecasting, including studying satellite weather maps and measuring humidity and rainfall. 

“Arabia Weather provided the students with several pieces of equipment including screens,” Nabulsi noted, adding that a member of Arabia Weather visited the site and approved the location the school allocated for the station.   

“Students learn about the weather forecast every morning and now the students themselves are the ones who produce it,” she said. 

Nabulsi also took pride in the fact that “Arabia Weather decided to send 10 trainees to the school to let our students teach them, as their level of experience is getting better.”

Khawlah Sharif, one of two teachers in charge of the station, said weather forecasting has become part of students’ daily life and education. 

Sharif said the project will also benefit the community because it will be open to meteorology enthusiasts outside the school.

Nabulsi said the school will submit a letter to the Ministry of Education asking it to allow students interested in meteorology to learn at the station, which cost the school around JD10,000. 

Ayman Sawalha, director of automatic meteorology systems at Arabia Weather, said the station at the school is also used by Arabia Weather in its forecasting. 

“It is an automatic station operated 24 hours every day,” Sawalha told The Jordan Times over the phone.   

Rahaf Jaafari, 16 years old, said after visiting the office of Arabia Weather: “I want to be a meteorologist... most meteorologists are men but women can do this too.”

Yara Odwan, another student, said the ability to forecast weather helped her to manage what to wear and make plans for daily life.”I hope that there will be a meteorology major at universities because there are many students interested in this field,” she added.