Butler Catholic, St. Wendelin students learn how weather works
Every weekend, viewers across the Pittsburgh area watch Jill Szwed’s forecast on TV. On Friday, students from Butler Catholic and St. Wendelin schools got to see her talk about how weather works in person.
Szwed, a meteorologist at WTAE, came to Butler Catholic School Friday, May 22. She led students in interactive demonstrations showing how the weather works.
The assembly was part of Butler Catholic and St. Wendelin’s Faith, Fluency and Forecasts Day, bringing students from both schools together for a series of activities.
Szwed led students in demonstrating the water cycle and different types of weather, including how lightning, hail and hurricanes work. She ended the assembly with a final demonstration in which students spun around in a spinning chair with their arms out, then tucked them in to increase their spin speed. That demonstration showed how as a tornado column contracts, its speed increases.
Sierra Viehmann, an eighth-grade student at Butler Catholic, said she loved how interactive the assembly was and how engaging Szwed was.
“My favorite part of the assembly was seeing how our assembly leader interacted with the students and how she’s very engaging across both schools,” she said.
Asher Regis, a third-grade student at St. Wendelin, who participated in the hurricane demonstration, said his favorite part was “whenever I got to demonstrate stuff.”
This was not the first time Butler Catholic and St. Wendelin came together for a special assembly. Last year, the two schools held a joint assembly with the Skydome Planetarium. After that assembly’s success, the schools decided to do another joint event together.
According to St. Wendelin principal Jolynn Clouse, Szwed reached out to St. Wendelin and Butler Catholic to do an assembly.
In addition to the assembly, St. Wendelin and Butler Catholic held several combined events.
After the assembly, third- through eight-grade students played the math card game Math 24, while kindergarten through second-grade students participated in a reading lesson with UFLI, a specialized reading program. Finally, the students enjoyed a joint lunch, recess and mass.
According to Clouse, Butler Catholic and St. Wendelin worked together on the event because they have many things in common.
“St. Wendelin and Butler Catholic are only 10 miles apart, and all of these students, and all of these teachers believe in the same thing: that Jesus should be in every classroom throughout the day,” she said.
The weather assembly also connects with both schools’ curricula.
“Weather is part of the science curriculum in both schools for our upper grades especially,” Clouse said.
The assembly was not only special for the students. It was also special for Szwed, a Butler Catholic alum.
She told the students in attendance, “My love for weather started in this very building.”
She shared more details in an interview before the assembly, saying, “I fell in love in my fifth- and sixth-grade science classroom, so it was so wonderful to come back to a school like Butler Catholic, where my love for the weather began.”
