To learn more about the tower, please click here. 

This website was created by a group of students from Columbia University's Community Service Learning Program, involved in the Gateway Design course.

The Gateway Engineering course is a required introductory course of all freshmen at the Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science at Columbia University in the City of New York. The Gateway course is designed to ground students in the basic principles of engineering design, teamwork, and citizenship through community projects. Our community partner is the Future Leaders Institute.

The Future Leaders Institute is a charter school in Harlem that serves students in kindergarten through eighth grade. A consortium of teachers created FLI with the goal of bringing an above average level of public education to Harlem. FLI has grown to just over 300 students and over its short time of existence, has become one of the highest performing schools in Harlem.

The Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory at Columbia University has donated an Onset Corporation “HOBO” weather logger, Upward Innovations SolarStream data transmitter, and an array of sensors to FLI for educational use. However, over the past few years, the equipment has been highly underutilized. In Spring of 2006, a Gateway group created a classroom space and a series of computer based exercises. However, the exercises remained cumbersome. In Fall of 2006, a Gateway group created a series of tutorials on Microsoft Excel and contracted a programmer to create a live weather display.

This website was created in Spring of 2007 in an effort to increase utilization of the weather equipment. The programming effort was spearheaded by Jonathan Bell, and Carol Li, Marc Fitorre, Bryan Chiou, and Won-Pyo Lee all contributed to the initial tutorial creation and overall design process. This site includes easy access to current and historical weather data, information on meteorology (through tutorials), and a space to showcase student works. Additionally, FLI weather data is now transmitted to the Civilian Weather Observation Program, National Weather Service, and Weather Underground .

More information can be found at:

• The Future Leaders Institute
• The Community Service Learning Program at Columbia University
• The FLI Tower's summary page at the Civilian Weather Observation Program
• Photos of the tower
  
• Project Summary from Fall 2005
• Project Summary from Spring 2006
• Project Summary from Fall 2006
• Project Summary from Spring 2007