Strange the ideas some students have about the weather! One hopeful in an examination, for example, asserted in his answerbook that "the low heavy clouds we see are called Columbus clouds". Another was of the view that "the heaps of sand in the Sahara are called whirlwinds", while a third, asked to name a gas that was lighter than air, responded: "Lightning".
"A moraine means heavy rain" as an answer to a question on physical geography has a certain quirky ring about it, and might seem to be etymologically sound. And also, in the case of the student who wrote "A rain shadow is a piece of ground, and when it rains it is not touched," you can see where the idea came from.
Neither, however, was as evocatively articulate as the hopeful who described snow as "frozen water gone fluffy", adding for good measure that "hail is when it hasn't". But top marks for culinary distraction must go to the originator of: "A tornado is a kind of steak."
It may be, of course, that such howlers are a consequence of gradgrindism. Mr Gradgrind, you may remember, was the gentleman in Dickens's Hard Times who had strong views on education: "Now, what I want is Facts," he instructed. "Teach these boys and girls nothing but Facts. Facts alone are wanted in life. Plant nothing else, and root out everything else."
But there is another way. The cost of equipment for receiving live satellite pictures was prohibitive until a few years ago, but has now dropped to the extent that an investment of some hundreds of pounds, combined perhaps with existing computer facilities in a school, may well be sufficient to receive useful and interesting material on a regular basis.
As an alternative, a wide range of real-time satellite images and other meteorological data is freely available on the Web as a little "surfing" will almost instantly reveal. Students, naturally enough, are much more interested in studying today's weather situation than in doing abstract exercises related to the Leaving Certificate curriculum. They are likely to assimilate more information as a consequence.
The images can be used, not just for teaching students about the weather, but also for activities related to geography, earth sciences, physics, astronomy and environmental studies. More serious students of meteorology can compare satellite pictures with the daily weather map in The Irish Times, identifying the various weather systems, following the tracks of depressions, hurricanes and fronts, and generally becoming familiar with the relationship between the different weather patterns and the corresponding images on satellite.