To Tropics (?)

"To Tropics (?) project

We started this project driven by the curiosity to find out how much the global warming that has occurred in recent decades made its action felt in the territory of Cisterna di Latina and in its immediate vicinity.

Agriculture is strongly influenced by weather and climate. While farmers in our city are often flexible in dealing with weather and year-to-year variability, there is not nevertheless a high degree of adaptation to the local climate in the form of established infrastructure, local farming practice and individual experience: climate change can therefore be expected to impact on agriculture.

Climate change can impact on natural vegetation and on quality of life.

Is our impression about climate changes real?

What are climate changes consequences in Cisterna di Latina's territory and in its nearest areas?

We decided:

• to analyze the data about temperature, levels of rain from Cisterna di Latina weather station integrated by those of the near weather stations in Cori, Velletri and Latina (max 15 km away from our locality), overmore than 100 years. Weather data has been accessible thanks to the Hydrological Yearbook (Latium) and PLUTER Project published by Istituto Superiore per la Protezione e la Ricerca Ambientale (ISPRA).

• to analyze data about changes in the vegetation, soil moisture and temperature. We logged in EO Browser: it allows us to visualize satellite data from numerous satellites and data collections instantly.

• to realize two Arduino based mini-weather station with Wi-Fi connection, which are able to post data publicly online using the ThingSpeak platform. The weather stations collect temperature, humidity and atmospheric pressure data while the rainfall data were collected using a rain gauge. The weather stations have been positioned in Aleramo and Don Caselli complexes of the IC "Leone Caetani": they allow to study climate data on a small territorial scale.

Learning objectives:

• identify the weather elements (pressure, humidity, temperature, rainfall);

• learn how to take weather measurements;

• observe and record weather conditions;

• identify local weather processes;

• learn that satellites, computers and scientific instruments are used to make weather forecasts;

• represent and interpret data;

• programming elements.