EASESummer School
EASESummer School
What each session covers, who is leading it, and what you'll walk away knowing how to do. For the full day-by-day schedule with exact times, see the overview page.
Back to overviewAn opening session introducing the EASE project, its objectives, and the role of this Summer School as a learning and testing event. You'll get an overview of the week's structure and how the training, the educational resources, and the field instruments all connect to what happens afterwards in pilot schools.
The scientific grounding for the rest of the week: what actually separates weather from climate, and how our picture of both has changed from historical records to modern instrumental datasets. You'll be introduced to the core atmospheric parameters — temperature, pressure, humidity, precipitation, wind, solar radiation — that every weather station measures.
A hands-on workshop opening up the instruments you'll be using all week — weather stations, environmental sensors, educational seismometers and spectrometry devices — as modular, buildable systems rather than sealed boxes. There's a strong focus on 3D printing and digital fabrication as a way to build low-cost DIY instruments, plus practical guidance on where and how to install a station well.
A field visit to a real, working monitoring site at the Pâclele Mici Mud Volcanoes, where you'll see professional and educational meteorological, seismic and GNSS equipment installed side by side. The trainers walk through why exposure, topography and local surface conditions matter so much for data quality, using datasets recorded on site as a working example.
How to turn a scientific instrument into meaningful classroom learning, not just a demonstration. A weather station, rain gauge, seismometer or sensor can become the starting point for genuine inquiry — this session works through defining a clear question, setting achievable outcomes, using low-cost materials, and designing a final product students actually produce.
A short classroom activity outline of your own: the instrument or concept, one inquiry question, the data or observations to collect, the student task, the final product, and one limitation worth discussing with your class.
Two rotating workshops built around the same workflow — build or examine → measure → observe → analyse → interpret → communicate — each combining one main hands-on activity with a few shorter demonstrations. Groups rotate at the coffee break so everyone experiences both workshops.
Build or examine a low-cost 3D-printed spectrometer and use it to read spectra from different light sources — daylight, artificial light, filtered light.
Assemble a simple DIY seismometer and generate your own vibrations — footsteps, table taps, small impacts — to see inertia made visible: the suspended mass stays still while the frame moves around it.
The afternoon moves outdoors: a guided circuit with several stops chosen for their geological and environmental interest, where you'll make short observations and simple measurements. At each stop, present-day evidence — erosion, vegetation, microclimate — is used to read the landscape's geological and climatic history.
This session has its own dedicated page with details on each stop along the route — see Field Investigations.