Our school climate project
We are students at the Johann-Gottfried-Herder secondary school in Cologne. The topic which we are dealing with in our PULCHRA project is the climate in our city. We focussed on our schoolyard. At our school there are measuring instruments we used to compare how different parts of the school differ in temperature.
Where we measured
In our school we have a school garden. The special thing about our school garden is that we have a lot of animals and plants there: water striders, newts, ants, grasshoppers and many more. We have strawberries, bamboo, grass, many flowers and an apple tree. We also have a measuring instrument in our garden. The most interesting things in the garden are our pond and an insect hotel. We also have measuring instruments in other parts of the schoolyard: Next to our basketball and football pitch, we have another measuring instrument that hangs on a fence. It can measure temperature. The last measuring instrument hangs on a tree. It can also measure temperature. It is really hot there because there is a lot of asphalt.
We compared the temperature data from these three places to find out which place is the hottest.
What we found out
The observation period is 26th May 2021 until 6th June 2021. We saw that the place with a lot of asphalt and only a couple of trees and bushes is 1°C hotter in average than the other places. The school garden is the coldest school part because there are lots of plants that offer shadow. It is cold next to the fence because there is a small forest that offers a lot of shadow right next to it.
As you can see in the picture with the three box plots, the temperature in the school garden is the lowest. We summarised the most important data in a table to make it easier to understand.
Our plans to improve the climate?
So we have to plant more plants to help our school to cool down.
The goals of our class to regulate the climate of the school are as follows: We want to plant plants and trees in bare places. These will provide shade. We also want to paint the red colour of a school building white. And we want to have greener in the classes and teachers’ rooms.
Johann-Gottfried-Herder secondary school, class 6e, June 2021
