Bulacan public school wins Rain Watchers Award

MANILA, Philippines - The San Miguel National High School’s (SMNHS) participation in the Rain Watchers Awards proved sweeter the second time around when the Bulacan public school improved on its second place finish in 2010 to win the grand prize this year.

SMNHS bested 81 other schools participating in the second year of the annual rainfall monitoring competition conducted by the Typhoon Committee Foundation, Inc. (TCFI) and the Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration (PAGASA), in partnership with Smart Communications.

In second place was Tabaco National High School in Albay, while last year’s grand prize winner Monkayo National High School in Monkayo, Compostela Valley came in third.

“Initiatives like Project Rain Gauge and the Rain Watchers’ Awards help build the public’s understanding and appreciation of the work that goes into weather forecasting. At the same time, we hope that the students participating in the process and who better appreciate the science behind it will go on to become meteorologists,” said AGHAM Party-list Rep. Angelo Palmones.

The top three teams each received a laptop and cash prizes of P25,000 for the champion, P15,000 for second place and P10,000 for third place. Each team member also received a cell phone, Smart Bro prepaid plug-it unit, congressional medal and a certificate of recognition during the awarding ceremony held at the PAGASA Science Garden in Quezon City.

The Rain Watchers Awards was launched in 2009 to strengthen participation in Smart’s Project Rain Gauge by rewarding the efforts of partner schools to regularly monitor rainfall in their respective localities.

Under Project Rain Gauge, public schools in flood-prone areas maintain rain gauges provided by Smart within their campuses. Participants in Project Rain Gauge are trained to regularly monitor and record rainfall data, which they send to www.projectraingauge.ph which is hosted and maintained by Smart.

Though initially a science education project, Project Rain Gauge is envisioned to eventually create a network of supplementary ground stations across the country to provide additional data on local rainfall measurement in specific areas for more effective and accurate local weather monitoring. 

Its importance is underscored by the fact that the Philippines has a complex weather system and that there are only 58 ground stations for weather monitoring in the entire country.

Winners of the Second Rain Watchers Awards were recognized during a plenary at the House of Representatives and were treated to a field trip at the Manila Ocean Park. Smart also sponsored their attendance at the two-day Philippine Meteorological Society convention “Dots, Isobars and Meteograms: Understanding the Science of Meteorology.”