27 January 2015

Drops of science for Dutch and French pupils

 
RainGain has started the new year with a large range of educational activities. While the new X-band weather radars were being installed on two roofs of Paris and Rotterdam, school students were involved in workshops on rainfall observation.
 
In Delft, during the Waterlab kick-off meeting at TU Delft, about 300 children were introduced to the RainGain project. The aim of the workshop was to train the pupils to collect in the following months rainfall data, with an homemade rain gauge, as well as weather data through the weather stations located in three Delft schools.
 
In Paris two high school classes were invited to operate the X-band radar located in front of École des Ponts ParisTech since December 2014. The next appointment with education will be in February with the publication of "La pluie", a children book by Auguste Gires (École des Ponts ParisTech) that addresses in a playful way complex issues investigated in the RainGain project, such as rainfall measurements, drop formation or rainfall variability.
 
Daniel Schertzer and Rosa Vicari presented the RainGain project and the rain radar of École des Ponts. (Photos by R. Vicari)
Karel Luyben and Alex Lokhorst welcomed the students at the Science Centre of TU Delft. Auguste Gires gathered suggestions from pupils at Sceaux school to improve his book.