VIDEO: Heather the Weather meets Sprouston pupils

With teenaged swedish campaigner Greta Thunberg instilling an avid interest in global warming worldwide, kids are now, perhaps more than ever, interested in the vagaries of the weather.

And at Sprouston Primary School, near Kelso, it’s been taken to a whole new level.

A chance meeting with children’s author Alom Shaha sent them down a path to having their own weather station at the school, thanks to a £300 grant from the Scottish Government.

And, with this week being Maths Week, the 19 pupils have been recording rainfall, wind direction and speed, dew points and more.

Sprouston Primary pupils give their findings on the week's weather

The pupils, who all adopted the surname of a famous mathematician for the week, presented their findings to parents, teachers, and special guest, Dr Heather Reid, at the school this morning.

Teacher Frances McTeir was the driving force behind the project.

She told us: “The kids did a fantastic job.

“They have been recording their data through to 2pm yesterday afternoon, so they haven’t had a lot of time to prepare their presentations, so I think they should be really proud of themselves.”

Heather – also known as ‘Heather the Weather’ who presented the weather on BBC Scotland until 2009, also gave the children a presentation on the weather, what causes it, how forecasts are prepared and the effects we are having on it.

She was ‘blown away’ by the presentation, which also included a weather report in French.

Heather said: “I have had a fantastic day today ... I have been really impressed by the enthusiasm and the knowledge of the pupils here in what they are doing on weather, but also importantly it’s brought in so much maths and nemeracy which is what Maths Week Scotland is all about.

“The pupils have been doing a lot of observing and they had a really professional data display spproach to that, using bar charts, line graphs, percentages and differences.

They were also able to talk about it really confidently, which is what it’s all about.”

She added: “Climate chage has such a high profile at the moment, and rightly so.

“Weather is the building block for how our climate is changing, so understanding our own local weather, the environment and the impact on it by the weather is crucial.

“I said to the pupils that once they bhave measured something, once they have got that data associated with that, then it’s a fact.

“It’s your data, you have ownership of it and it gives you belief in your informed decision making as well.

“And that’s transferable to everything you go on to do.”