Fourth graders Chloe Fitzgibbons (left) and Lance Jarosz check out the temperature and barometric pressure at the WeatherBug station at HES. (Photo by Lisa Aciukewicz)

Fourth-grade students at Hildreth Elementary School (HES) pay attention to the weather—really close attention—thanks to their own weather monitoring station.

When winds whipped and lightning flashed in the recent storms, students understood wind direction, wind speed, rainfall rates, and even the abstract concept of rising and falling barometric press. And when the outside temperature registered 97 degrees on their indoor thermometer, they had a measurement for the too-hot classroom that sent them to the Harvard Public Library last week to cool off.

Fourth-grade teachers Kathleen Kittredge and Donna Piché had known for several years about the WeatherBug for Schools, but a grant from the Harvard Schools Trust enabled the teachers to bring the program's professional-grade weather station equipment and online curriculum to HES last October. Visible on the roof on the south side of HES, the outside weather station includes a wind sensor, a rain gauge, and sheltered sensors for humidity, temperature, and barometric pressure. Inside, a digital panel, which sits on a high shelf built by parent Karl Schwiegershausen, displays the current weather readings. Data is available for more than 20 parameters, from temperature graphs to weekly, monthly, and yearly rainfall measurements.

The basics of weather and the water cycle are part of the Massachusetts science curriculum standards for fourth grade. The WeatherBug for Schools program includes lesson plans correlated with state standards and ad-free online weather-related activities that integrate with other lessons.

"We cover our fourth-grade weather unit in October," said Kittredge. But with daily tracking and weather activities correlated to other subjects, "when the weather unit ends, we haven't ended weather."

Students in her class were eager to share what they learned about the weather. "This is the barometer," pointed out Chloe Cushing. "If it goes low, low, low, there's a storm."

"If the humidity is 100 percent, it's raining, but in the 90s it's sprinkling," explained Sage McFarland.

Kiara Munz was surprised to learn "how fast it can change."

"Once the wind went up to 40. It looked like the trees were going to blow down." said an animated Patrick Keiran.

Before recess during the winter, Piché's students were careful to check the wind chill and think about grabbing hats and gloves.

Students will build on their fourth-grade experience later at the Bromfield School in Glenn Tarullo's sixth-grade earth science classes. For four years, Tarullo has used Davis Vantage Pro weather measuring equipment and online tracking system, together with a limited number of hand-held weather instruments, to help students learn about weather, measurements, and local and global climate. Sixth-grade students compare their own findings to information uploaded to Weather Underground (wunderground.com) from weather stations at the Nashoba Village condominiums at the Ayer rotary, Bolton Flats, a backyard station in Littleton, and other local reporting centers accessible at WeatherWunderground.com.

Weather conditions from some of the 8,000 WeatherBug participating schools nationwide are available from weather.weatherbug.com.

"Checking the weather before going in-town" takes on a new meaning when "in-town" can be the Common or the Harvard Public Library.