Rutland Middle School students benefiting from weather system

Students at Rutland Middle School are learning about the benefits that come with having a weather system at the school.

MACON, Georgia (41NBC/WMGT) — Students at Rutland Middle School are learning about the benefits that come with having a weather system at the school.

Instead of using a phone app to predict the weather, students at Rutland Middle School are using the system to collect information themselves.

“It’s definitely interesting to kind of see how it works, because weather can be one minute it’s snowing and then the next it’s warm,” 6th grader Emma Beard said.

Yasser Mendoza-Perez say the system makes him curious about weather.

“Finding out what the temperature is, because most of the time, I feel like it’s 80 degrees, but it says like 70, and I want to find out why it’s changing,” Mendoza-Perez said.

The system tells students the temperature, humidity, wind speed, direction and rainfall.

According to Assistant Principal Eric Thompson, it also helps students learn how weather impacts sports.

“For athlete safety, there’s a certain threshold at which they’re not allowed to be outside, so students can begin to understand the relationship of what it feels like and what the actual numerics of those number are,” Thompson said.

The system works by connecting to WIFI. A pole outside then sends information to a monitor inside.

Lindsey Brown, a 6th grade science teacher at the school, says the system offers several benefits.

“Meteorology is a major factor in lots of STEM careers,” she said. “Just being able to predict what kind of weather you can see for the day, you can go anywhere from industrial engineering to our Air Force base.”

The school says the system even helped students confirm a tornado in 2018.