Seventeen teams of primary pupils and secondary students from all public and private schools will be awarded outstanding regional winners of the 2nd Rain Watchers Award. Qualifiers are those engaged in Project Rain Gauge, which Smart Communications, Inc. started in 2007 in partnership with the Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration (PAGASA).
According to Mr. Darwin F. Flores, Smart’s Senior Manager for Community Partnerships, Project Rain Gauge is envisioned to create a network of supplementary ground stations across the country to provide additional data on local rainfall measurement in specific areas for a more effective and accurate local weather monitoring. He said that involvement of teachers and students provides sustainability to the project.
“Schools are trained to regularly monitor and record rainfall data, which they send to a website (www.projectraingauge.ph ) hosted and maintained by Smart.” Flores added.
The search for outstanding rain watchers was suggested last year by AGHAM Party-List Representative Angelo B. Palmones, who is also the Chairman of the Philippine Typhoon Committee Foundation, Inc. (TCFI), aimed at widening the participation of schools and sustaining the interest of students.
The 2nd Rain Watchers Award was recently launched with the signing of the Memorandum of Agreement between the TCFI, PAGASA, the Department of Education (DepEd) and AGHAM.
“We support this effort to recognize the schools that have consistently and conscientiously monitored rainfall because we hope that the data gathered will support PAGASA, and complement the agency’s capacity to determine fine-scale rainfall patterns necessary to describe local climate,” Palmones said . He said that the work being done by rain watchers will help in building data that will form the basis for early warning systems in flood-prone communities.
From the regional, top three national winners will be selected and awarded by November this year. Regional winners will receive medals for the team and laptops for their schools, while national winners will receive cash prizes, plaques of recognition, mobile phones and Smart Bro plug-it units. Winning schools at the national level will receive desktop computers and Smart Bro plug-it units.
Interested schools can register in Project Rain Gauge until April 30, 2011. For more information, access www.projectraingauge.ph (AGHAM/Vicky B. Bartilet)
Its very nice thing that students get the awards on monitoring the rainfall....
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