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Velbert is a town of about 90.000 inhabitants, located in the hilly green core of the Rhine-Ruhr area in Western Germany - in the east of Düsseldorf and not far away from Cologne as more famous city.
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Water in the Computer
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Your partnerVelbert is a town of about 90.000 inhabitants, located in the hilly green core of the Rhine-Ruhr area in Western Germany - in the east of Düsseldorf and not far away from Cologne as more famous city. |
The topic "water" is part of the internal curriculum of the 8th grade of the Velbert Comprehensive School. It deals with the natural cycle of water and with the purification of waste water. But in this school year everything is different. The students learn about the importance of water in our climate system, including the tropospheric distribution, the formation of clouds and their impact on the earth"s radiation budget and even the role of water in the ozone depletion leading to the ozone hole. The students are working together in small groups directly connected to the Internet via laptops.
At the beginning, the teams informed themselves about some characteristics of water like "cohesion" and "adhesion" in the net. They also studied an animation about the "water cycle". Internet access is no problem, because one click on the browser is enough; the rest is done by a modern radio network combined with a communication server.
The goal of the lessons is to give the students an idea of "water as a meteorological element". This includes knowledge about characteristics of water (absorption, condensation, distribution and transport) in its different phases combined with a basic understanding of the climate system.
At the beginning of the first lessons the students' main interest is focussed on a single question :
"Have our scientists already put something new for us into the net?" They mean scientists from numerous countries co-operating with us in the context of the pilot project "ESPERE" (Environmental Science Published for Everybody Round the Earth). The idea is that experts inform about the current state of the environmental sciences and create a homepage - in our case on the topic of "water". Students and teachers at the schools contribute to the pages and evaluate the contents.
An open forum "climate" on the ESPERE server guarantees the simple exchange of information.
A great idea. The students learn about new and different aspects of the treated topic and the important issue of climate change can be integrated in the lessons in a reliable and topical way.
But first of all, this sort of conveying information offers invaluable advantages compared with school books. The information refers to latest scientific research and the multimedial description is more interesting and more comprehensible for the students. In case something remains unclear or somebody would like to learn more about an interesting detail, there is the possibility to contact the scientists via PC. For this purpose a virtual classroom has been installed at Teachers-Online, a German school server. Thus, questions can be asked and the topic can be discussed.
We are looking for schools from all over the world that are interested to participate in our project. In order to make the communication easier, the project "Water in the Computer" was installed on the GLOBE (Global Learning and Observations to Benefit the Environment) server.
Being in touch via Internet we would like to discuss basically the following topics:
"What way are you particularly concerned by the topic 'water' in your country?"
"What do you know about water as a climate determining element with a special focus on the conditions in your country?"
My students have created a small questionnaire on the topic 'water and climate' so that our students really get into contact with each other.
Practical work doesn't come off badly. In accordance with the information of the scientists I have created some worksheets with the help of which the students can work out the basis of some phenomena by doing simple experiments.
In addition, all participating schools are invited to carry out meteorological measurements:
Concrete:
1) Humidity:
The correlation between humidity and the observed weather is investigated. The students measure the humidity over a period of time they agreed upon before. The measured values are plotted as a function of the time.
2) Cloud cover:
By means of a digital (or normal) cameras pictures of clouds are taken over a period of two weeks and the students note other observations about the weather as precipitation and temperature and try to find out about the cloud cover and if there is any correlation with the humidity.
3) Interpretation
With the help of temperature and relative humidity the absolute content of water in the air can be calculated.
4) Seasons
If schools from the southern hemisphere join the project, a direct comparison of summer and winter conditions would be possible.
Scientists (information) and teachers (worksheets) create multimedial online learning material on the topic "water and climate".
The students measure the environmental data and put them into the Internet. On the GLOBE server the data are schematically edited and put at the disposal to all those who are interested.
Moreover, the students ask questions about the scientists' information.
The participating teachers from the different countries exchange material on the topic via Internet.
A first highlight of the project is the participation in an Open forum in the Internet during the international climate conference in Evora (Portugal) and the Netdays Europe. An international team of scientists is answering questions on the topic "climate".
Responsible teacher: Roland Bergmann - Velbert Comprehensive School
mailto: RBergmann@t-online.de
To our school homepage Back to the ESPERE pages on the 'water' project