Fabulous Field Trip

We had the greatest field trip today to the Blue Hills Weather Observatory! Thanks so much to the awesome kids and parents who went with us!

 The fourth graders were split into two groups.  My group started at the bottom and hiked up the hill.  The kids were full of energy the whole way up.  Cries of "Wait for your poor, old teacher!" were frequent.  Along the way we stopped to admire the colorful leaves and beautiful views.  It was a perfect day for walking - brisk but plenty warm once we got moving.

Once we got to the top of the mountain, we spent a little while at the observation tower.  From the top, there are amazing views of Boston and the Harbor Islands.  It was particularly stunning with the leaves being so colorful.

You can see boston in the distance on the right.

Then we had some time to explore the bridge and area around the observation tower.  There were lots of fun things to look at (and climb on).  We spent some time looking for evidence of weather. We found rustling leaves and blowing branches.  We also found puddles from the rain last night.  There was also an incident of a hat blowing off a head and getting stuck in a tree!

After that we went over to the Weather Observatory.  We got to learn about how they used to use giant kites to fly weather equipment high up into the atmosphere.  They used those tools to find out about the temperature, atmospheric pressure, and humidity of the upper stratosphere.  Mr. McCasland was full of so much interesting information!

Next we got to do a Balloon Launch.  We wrote our names and date on some neon cards.  Then they were tied to balloons and we let them go.  It was so windy that they flew away faster than I've ever seen!  Be on the lookout for those neon cards!  If you find one while you're walking around or raking make sure you follow the directions on the back so we know where our balloons ended up.  We are really hoping to hear something about them this year.

After lunch, we got to go into the observatory.  We saw meteorologists at work; using barometers, thermometers, hygrometers, and anemometers.
 We had such an amazing trip!!