A new and fun way to collect data about climate and climate change is coming to the grounds at Old Rochester Regional High School with the installation of the area’s first Picture Post station.
Fully funded by the Environmental Protection Agency, the project to study the changes in the environment is part of the Digital Earth Watch (DEW) network, a tool used by non-scientists to monitor their environment and share data and observations with the network.
ORR teacher Lynn Connor asked the Old Rochester Regional School Committee on October 19 to approve the installation of the post on the approach to the athletic fields as a way for students and visitors to happen upon it and participate.
“Last year, the EPA approached me to work on a project with them called ‘Weather-ready Mattapoisett,’” said Connor. Throughout the year, she said, she attended a number of meetings focused on extreme weather and local storm preparation and came up with the idea to bring one or two Picture Posts to the Tri-Town area.
The station is essentially a fence post with a platform to place a cell phone on and take photos of the surroundings. Markings guide the user to take pictures in each of the eight directions, as well as one overhead at the sky.
Using an app or by visiting the website, the photos can be uploaded to the database and accessed by anyone, including climate scientists, all over the world.
“It’s used to track changes in our environment starting from the day it’s installed and the first pictures are taken … and into the future,’ Connor said. “[One could observe] the first day of the leaf bud of this year to five years, ten years, twenty years from now.”
The greenness of the trees could be tracked, Connor said, and the start of the autumn leaves as well as when the first snow falls each subsequent year could also be tracked.
“There’s so much you can do with that data over time,” said Connor.
“It’s a wonderful form of participatory data gathering,” said Assistant Superintendent Elise Frangos. “It’s just going to be a great opportunity for our students to gather that data and be a part of this global work of gathering data on change. I think it’s really neat.”
The Picture Post will have a sign directing the user, and the system is designed to be easy and user-friendly, Frangos pointed out.
The user would place the bottom of their cellphone flat on the platform disc, back against the side of the octagon that faces North marker “N.” The user then aligns the middle of the back of the camera with the edge of the octagon and points the lens away from the post. Using the widest angle on the camera, the user snaps a pic, repeating seven times clockwise around the marked points on the octagon, and an additional one from the disc up at the sky.
The user then submits the photos to the Picture Post website or via the app.
“It’s so easy to do, and it’s really kind of interesting to share that data,” said Frangos.
The next meeting of the Old Rochester Regional School Committee is scheduled for November 16 at 6:30 pm in the ORR Junior High School media room.
By Jean Perry