Every year on the 23rd March meteorological services around the world celebrate World Meteorological Day to mark the creation of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) in 1950. This year’s World Meteorological Day theme is ‘Weather and climate: engaging youth’.
WMO is engaging with young people through a variety of ways, including:
- A new and revamped “Youth corner” website providing fun information like ‘how to make a tornado in a jar’ or ‘creating a portable cloud’.
- A guide to having a career in meteorology
The Met Office is continually looking at ways to get young people engaged in the fascinating world of weather and climate. Here are some of the things we’re doing:
Inspiring the next generation with EDF Energy
This Met Office and EDF Energy collaboration is part of a wider partnership programme to help explain our science and extend science reach into new audiences.
In 2011, the Met Office began collaborating with EDF Energy to help educate school children about weather and climate science. It’s our aim to ensure that all children using EDF Energy’s The Pod have a good understanding of the science underpinning the other sustainability topics they study.
The Pod has a wide reach among teachers and children across the UK. There are now more than 17,000 schools registered and over 10 million children engaged with the Pod since it began in 2008.
Teachers can download hands-on activities designed by the Met Office, which help young people engage and develop their understanding of weather and climate topics. These activities include the ‘Degrees of change’ which addresses historic temperature records and natural variability and ‘Carbon Cycle Capers’, an activity that teaches children about carbon sinks and sources.
STEM Ambassadors at the Met Office
Science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) is at the heart of the Met Office. Without continued expertise in these fields, we would not be able to maintain its position as the United Kingdom’s national weather service and a leading centre for climate research. We need to attract the brightest people and enable our employees to develop their professional skills during their careers.
One way to fulfil these aims, is to engage in STEM outreach and we have seen our STEM Ambassador team grow from 10 four years ago to more than 120 active ambassadors across the UK today. The STEM outreach programme is embedded into Met Office culture, bringing benefits to both the Met Office and its wider communities.
The work of our STEM Ambassadors varies hugely – from visits to local schools to talk about science or careers to running climate science workshops to weather balloon launches and code clubs. Ambassadors also take part in national events such as The Big Bang and work with other organisations engaged in STEM outreach.
Met Office Science Camp
In the summer of 2013, the Met Office ran a series of pilot events, providing an educational science night for young people aged 11–12 at the Met Office headquarters in Exeter.
These Met Office Science Camps have proved to be a great success. Over four events, 176 children from local schools and scout/guide groups got hands-on with STEM at the Met Office. They camped overnight in onsite conference rooms, helped along by a team of over 100 staff volunteers who represented almost every area of the Met Office’s work.
The feedback from the students was overwhelmingly positive; saying they would recommend Met Office Science Camps to a friend. The feedback from staff was equally positive, saying that they would recommend volunteering to colleagues and would take part and help organise future events again.
Building on the success of Met Office Science Camp 2013 we will run four events over the summer of 2014, endeavouring to make each one bigger, louder and more fun.
Interested in a career in science?
To mark World Meteorological Day, The Royal Meteorological Society is working with the Met Office, the University of Reading, the Institute of Physics and local schools, to run a Twitter session on careers in science.
They will be answering questions on the physics of the environment and meteorology. There are some great interviewees taking part including Prof Iain Stewart, scientist and broadcaster; Prof Marshall Shepherd Director, Atmospheric Sciences Program, University of Georgia and ex President of the American Meteorological Society and academics from various universities. From industry we have experts; including Dominic Sindall, Head Catastrophe Risk Analyst at Faber Global Ltd and others. The Abbey School, Reading will also be taking part.
You can join the Twitter conversation between 2pm and 4pm on Thursday 20 March. To join in, follow @rmets and use #sciencecareers. More information on how to take part can be found here.
Official blog of the Met Office news team 
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How could I not “Like” this as my son works for the, National Weather Service? It is his passion. I am forwarding him your blog post which is excellent! My son was passionate about weather since the age of six. Here’s to our youth learning more and teaching others!
lets hope MetO contextualise the current warming with charts like this
which shows there is nothing to be afraid of and in fact the current cool period is the exception.
lets hope they do not tell people long range forecasting is not possible because there is evidence it can be done. Good science does not curve fit evidence to fit pet theories or to get grants. That i hope they tell the kiddies is the ‘dark side’ of science. MetO would never go to the dark side. Or would it?
MetO says long range weather forecasting is impossible so why not hold a well publicised competition open to anyone? There is evidence people can do it such as those who predicted the winter storms months ahead. Is it not MetO focus to be at cutting edge forecasting for the uk rather than making cobra and the political class look stupid predicting drier than av winters?
The only problem is long range forecasting would flush the co2 spider down the plughole because those who can do it will have superior understanding of the processes and the correct correlation . So despite the huge benefits to the nation that would come from long range forecasting i know a competition will never happen because these days weather science is about politics not science.