Hi Grainne,
Welcome to the course, and thank you for your post. You raise important points from the paper ‘Unravelling STEM: Beyond the acronym of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics’, including the need for a hands-on approach for learners. There are a lot of takeaways from the paper that can be applied to the classroom.
I am delighted that you are inspired to engage your learners with a weather station in the coming year. It can be very cost-effective to build your own equipment, but I see you have a long-term plan in mind. Equipment can be worth getting if used regularly!
By gathering data on an ongoing basis, learners will develop their STEM skills and be able to create graphs, use technology etc, to display learnings visually. Senior learners can also present their weather station to younger classes and teach them how to read the various instruments to get the whole school involved. I like your idea of having it in a safe place for practical reasons, just remember to keep the thermometer out of the sun!