On Oct. 20, Ms. Karen McCartney's Grade 5 class traveled to the Thompson Airport flight tower at 9:15 a.m. It was a crisp autumn day with the great jet engines roaring in the background. All of us were big with excitement and we were eager to see what would happen next on our great adventure!
The first piece of technology we saw was the rain gauge. The rain gauge was there to measure the amount of rain. We also found out about a backup piece of technology called a weather balloon. It is used to measure the height of the clouds. This next piece of technology is pretty much the same, but it's not the back up piece of equipment; the laser is the first thing used to measure the height of the clouds. The laser was large, white and points to the sky. Another piece that was way out in the field went by the name of "windsock." A windsock is used to measure wind direction. It was an orange and white cone shaped device. The last piece of technology I want to tell you about is called the radar, it measures the types of weather, for example clouds.
When we went to the weather station we met a climatologist, who was out tour guide. He was very kind and welcoming to us. His job was to watch and measure weather, take care of the equipment and to send information to the Weather Network. His job seems like a hardworking one, but I guess it is worth it since he gets to play video games and watch television to keep himself awake on the job.
I think it would be difficult to have a job like that because of all of the different types of technology, the calls they have to make to pilots that are landing and arriving, but who knows it might be cool!
I would like to give a big thank you to my excellent teacher, Ms. McCartney who organized such a wonderful trip for our class. I would also like to thank Mrs. Bartlett, Mrs. House, Mrs. Anderson and Mrs. Dawson for chaperoning and driving us on our field trip. It was an awesome day!
Kali Cummings is a Grade 5 student in Karen McCartney's class at Burntwood School
