Make a Weather Station: Rain Gauge
Materials:
- 1 wire hanger
- 1 glass container jar with a 1 to ½ inch rim diameter
- 1 felt marker
- 1 measuring spoon (¼ tsp. Measurement)
- 1 wooden broom stick
Instructions:
1. Put in three ¼ teaspoons of water into your container. Mark the water level with the felt tip pen by drawing a horizontal line.
2. Put in another three ¼ teaspoons of water into your container. Mark the water level again. Continue doing this till you have about ten horizontal lines rising upwards. These lines are your gauge scale.
3. Pour the water out of the container.
4. Untwist the wire hanger so that it no longer has a hanger shape. If this is too difficult, you can use any sturdy wire instead.
5. Reshape the wire hanger so that it makes two loops around your container, with one loop near the top, and one near the bottom.
6. One end of the wire hanger should support the base of your container. This end attaches to the broom stick. The other end of the hanger (near the top loop) should also wrap around the broom stick.
7. Choose a place in your garden that is not surrounded by trees or not near a roof. It has to be as open as possible. Sometimes fences are a good spot, in which case you may not need the broom stick.
8. Dig a hole about two feet deep into the ground and put in the broom stick, covering it with soil and securing it in your garden.
A rain gauge measures rain fall by cubic inches. Three ¼ teaspoons roughly make one cubic inch. Your gauge can measure up to ten cubic inches, which is a lot of rain!! You situate the gauge away from trees and roofs so that rain falling on these objects cannot block rain from your gauge or funnel rain into it. Putting it in a clear area of your garden assures you that you are getting accurate measurements.
Next Article: Make a Weather Station: Wind Vane
