Colorado State University to Offer Free Equipment, Training on Precipitation Monitoring for Teachers in Colorado Springs

Colorado State University is helping to bring donated rain gauges to every school across Colorado while training kids and teachers to use the scientific measurements in their classrooms.

As part of that effort, teachers in Colorado Springs are invited to a free 30-minute training seminar at 4:30 p.m. Tuesday, August 28. The event will be in the Colorado Springs Utilities Conservation and Environmental Center, 2855 Mesa Road, 80904 (Garden View Room). Reservations are requested at education@cocorahs.org.

Colorado State’s volunteer precipitation monitoring network – created by CSU state climatologist Nolan Doesken after the devastating 1997 Spring Creek flood in Fort Collins – assists meteorologists and scientists nationwide by gathering accurate data on precipitation, which can vary within one community or even one block.

The program, called the Community Collaborative Rain, Hail and Snow Network, or CoCoRaHS (http://www.cocorahs.org/), now boasts 16,000 volunteers in all 50 United States and in Canada.

CSU and CoCoRaHS reached out to organizations statewide, and have received enough pledges to donate one gauge per Colorado school. Teachers interested in obtaining a gauge and training should contact education@cocorahs.org for more information.

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