New Weather Station Installed at GCC

BATAVIA, NY (04/06/2012)(readMedia)-- A new solar-powered weather monitoring station is up at running on the Batavia campus of Genesee Community College. The wireless unit is powered through solar energy stored in rechargeable batteries, which are used when conditions warrant, such as rainy days.

The station, funded through a grant from the GCC Foundation President's Innovation Award Program, gives more accurate weather data for the campus than was previously available from the weather station at Batavia's School for the Blind. A recent study found that wind and temperature readings on the main campus differed substantially from those obtained at the school on Richmond Avenue, with temperature differences of 5 to 7 degrees Fahrenheit, and wind speed differentials of 7 to 16 mph logged during the summer of 2010.

Current temperature and weather conditions, as well as other information, is available to students and the public via GCC's Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/GeneseeCommunityCollege by clicking on the "Weather @ GCC" icon.

"Our new weather station offers our environmental studies and engineering students, as well as many others with a great new opportunity of observing weather patterns for teaching and learning purposes," Maureen Leupold, professor of Biology said. "It also will enable the ongoing data collection process with the College's three-year ornithological Nestbox Predation project with Cornell University's Nextbox Watch program."

Demonstrations of GCC's Nestbox Predation study including bird banding will be in action at the upcoming Cool Kids! ECO-Fest Celebration on Saturday, April 14, 2012. The program is being conducted by Tom Klotzbach, a local birding expert and researcher involved in a bird migration study with U.S. Geological Survey.

For more information, contact GCC Biology Professor Maureen Leupold at: MALeupold@genesee.edu or call 585-343-0055 x 6394.

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