Combermere School has rejoined the nation’s amateur weather-watching network, as the campus weather station has been refurbished, reopened, and renamed after former geography teacher Annette Jebodhsingh, who pioneered the original station.
Management and alumni gathered on the school grounds on Friday for a brief ceremony to open the new installation which is expected to provide students with hands-on training in instrument reading and other data collection procedures.
Principal Julia Beckles said the renewed station was not only a positive learning opportunity but paid tribute to Jebodhsingh for her contribution to the school in helping to set up the station’s creation more than 30 years ago.
“Very often we speak about being custodians of the school’s legacy,” the principal said. “We must never forget that we are also guardians of its present. In that way, we owe a debt of gratitude to those persons who had the vision in the first place to conceptualise and bring this weather station to fruition. By reopening the station today, and dedicating it today, we are honouring the vision of those persons who thought about this in the first place,” she said.
“The weather station is going to allow for our students to be able to connect what they are doing in their classes, the theory, to the practical. Therefore, we believe that this weather station is going to give our students and our colleagues real-life teaching support.”
Jebodhsingh, the retired head of the geography department, thanked the school for its recognition of her efforts, saying that it was important for students to learn about weather systems and theories that support geography, away from the comfort of their classrooms.
She told the gathering: “It has been a long journey since the weather station got established in 1992 when Combermere became the only school with a fully equipped weather station. Geography is a living subject, it is all around us, and I felt strongly that students should not only be taught in the classroom, they needed to get outside and experience the subject. That is part of the reason I was such a fierce advocate of fieldwork and overseas field trips. So, in teaching weather, the students enjoyed coming outside and being able to identify the clouds, and see and touch the instruments that they would have read about in the textbooks.”
The Caribbean Institute for Meteorology and Hydrology (CIMH) and the National Conservation Commission (NCC) contributed to the digital instrumentation used in the new station.
“Now that the new equipment is digital, this should be even more appealing to the students,” Jebodhsingh said.
“Everyone knows how passionate I am about the weather station, and this is why I am really happy to see it back up and running and look forward to hearing readings from Combermere again on CBC.” (SB)
