Future Helena Flats and West Valley eighth-graders will have the tools to become novice meteorologists with the recent installation of WeatherBug Tracking Stations.

Students will be able to track hyper-local live weather data such as temperature, precipitation, humidity, barometric pressure, dew point, wind speed and direction via a computer or smartphone.

The weather stations were funded through $7,507 Plum Creek Montana Great Classroom Awards to West Valley science teacher Erin Bodman and Helena Flats science teacher Randolph Jakes to begin a project called the Glacier to Glacier Energy Challenge.

In addition to tracking weather and studying climate change, students will look at ways to minimize energy use in school in a partnership project that includes Evergreen Junior High School, which already has a weather station.

The three schools are plugged into a network of roughly 8,000 schools across the U.S. that have WeatherBug stations.

When Helena Flats and West Valley students previously studied local weather, they culled data from Glacier Park International Airport, but as Flathead Valley residents know, weather can be fickle from area to area.

“Our weather is going to be significantly different than in West Valley, for example,” Jakes said.

An added bonus for people is that when the weather stations go online, anyone will be able to check out local weather at weather.weatherbug.com.

“The community can dial in and see our little microclimate,” Jakes said.

Bodman said students will be able to look at temperature over time, compare data between schools and spot trends.

“I think it will be exciting for the students to look at data actually from our school,” Bodman said. “To have it here makes weather more applicable to them.”

Although each school is targeting eighth grade, the weather stations came with curriculum ideas for kindergarten through 12th grade.

Project ideas have been brewing for some time as Bodman and Jakes waited for their weather stations. Those projects include selecting a meteorologist of the day to read weather reports, conducting ongoing science projects or making videos on energy conservation to present to younger grades. The ultimate goal is to reduce energy use at school sites, Jakes said.

“We’re collecting data from our energy providers — collecting baseline data for next year,” Jakes said.

Jakes said the weather data will provide a jumping-off point to make a connection with energy use in the school.

“We have to figure out whether we’re going to capture information every day or try to get a weekly average and whether that ties in with big spikes of energy use,” Jakes said. “In the long term, the goal is to create a generation of people who understand the need to reduce, reuse and recycle,” Jakes said.

The impetus of the Glacier to Glacier Energy Challenge came after Bodman, Jakes and Evergreen science teacher science Victor Dalla Betta attended a conference on climate change workshop at Glacier National Park last summer.

The teachers began the school year with a unit on climate change followed by an eighth-grade field trip to Flathead Community College where students kicked off the Glacier to Glacier Energy Challenge and brainstormed ways to minimize energy at school.

“The conversation led to what kind of impact we can have at our schools,” Bodman said.

Plum Creek’s Great Classrooms program accepts applications for two review periods each year. Application deadlines are June 1 and December 1.

More information about Great Classroom awards is available at www.plumcreek.com/community/montana-great-classroom-awards.

Reporter Hilary Matheson may be reached at 758-4431 or by email at hmatheson@dailyinterlake.com.