Mrs. Leslie Sem’s first grade class received a visit from WPTZ Chief Meteorologist, Tom Messner, to talk about the weather. This year, the Mater Christi School Primary Odyssey of the Mind Team is working on a weather challenge. First, they want to make a product that predicts the weather and secondly, they want to make a machine that will say what the current weather is doing outside.  As many of the first grade students are on the Primary OM team, their coach, Jenny Larkin, arranged to have Tom Messner come speak. Additionally, this visit was a great segue into a weather unit that Mrs. Sem will be starting in March with the class.

Tom Messner brought in several VCR tapes (that the students were not too familiar with) that he had recorded real weather maps on and the class discussed the difference in the maps and how to read them. They discussed temperature maps, satellite image maps of the country, and how the radar maps show precipitation. Tom also showed the students a map with a hurricane on it! He explained that every 15 minutes, a satellite “22,000 miles away” takes a pictures on a camera, converts it to radio waves, and sends it to the new station. The news station presents the images on the news as a Flip Book.

Not only was the class enthusiastic from the moment Tom walked in the door, but he also inspired the OM students with their weather challenge!

For more photos, visit our smugmug album: http://materchristischool.smugmug.com/Academics/Tom-Messner-in-1S/