SMNHS Rainfall Monitoring Program

La Niña Most of us are curious what is La Niña and how does it occur. La Niña is a coupled ocean-atmosphere phenomenon that is the counterpart of El Niño as part of the broader El Niño-Southern Oscillation climate pattern. As I search for different facts about La Niña, I learned that during the period of La Niña, the sea surface temperature across the equatorial Eastern Central Pacific Ocean will be lower than normal by 3–5 °C. In the United States, an episode of La Niña is defined as a period of at least 5 months of La Niña conditions. The name La Niña originates from Spanish, meaning "the girl," analogous to El Niño meaning "the boy." It is sometimes informally called "anti-El Niño", is the opposite of El Niño, where the latter corresponds instead to a higher sea surface temperature by a deviation of at least 0.5 °C, and its effects are often the reverse of those of El Niño. El Niño is famous due to its potentially catastrophic impact on the weather along both the Chilean, Peruvian, New Zealand, and Australian coasts, among others. It has extensive effects on the weather in North America, even affecting the Atlantic Hurricane Season. La Niña is often, though not always, preceded by an El Niño. I want to know more about the extensive effects of La Niña on our weather and does it affect our different pattern of seasons. I would like to research on how the results of La Niña are mostly the opposite of those of El Niño; for example, El Niño would cause a dry period in the Midwestern U.S., while La Niña would typically cause a wet period in that area. La Niña often causes drought conditions in the western Pacific; flooding in northern South America; mild wet summers in northern North America and drought in the south-eastern United States. I appreciate the fact that During La Niña years, the trade winds are unusually strong due to an enhanced pressure gradient between the eastern and western Pacific. As a result, upwelling is enhanced along the coast of South America, contributing to colder than normal surface waters over the eastern tropical Pacific and warmer than normal surface waters in the western tropical Pacific. I can apply my learnings and insights in understanding weather conditions specially this phenomenon called La Niña. I can know understand better why we are experiencing La Niña here in the Philippines. Furthermore, I can apply my learnings and insights in a way of sharing information about La Niña and its importance.

Discussing the Importance of each Slogan with the group.

Sharing personal insights with the group

United as one, each of us, agrees to be an active steward of the environment.

Youth Advocacy

Promoting Environmental Advocacy

Today, I would like to blog about conserving nature.

The reasons why man do not conserve nature is, one, man needs to use the trees for wood, paper and other products. Two, people have to clear forests for cities. Lastly, they have to clear forests for agriculture. Honestly, it's fine doing so. However, excessive destruction leads to an endless wasteland.
To solve the first reason, people can put in more effort to recycle paper, old wood and other products. To solve the second problem, people can choose to live in taller buildings. Or move to houses that have already been built. To solve the third and final reason, farmers, can choose to make do with the land that they have. Or even better, buy abandoned land or farms. That way, no land can be wasted.

My thoughts on the current situation is, "Why don't people understand how important nature is to us?!" I understand that clearing forests is essential for us but we are really overdoing it by clearing more forests than what we actually need. It's just sad. How people simply disregard nature. There are only a few forests left in the world. The Earth used to be covered in green. Now, it's different.
To improve the current situation, I have decided to help recycle used paper and other products. I can also help to reuse old paper that my mother doesn't need anymore. I can still use the other clean side of the paper to write or draw on. That way, I won't waste a new clean sheet of paper.

My suggestions for further improvement is to simply practice the three Rs. If everyone can recycle every paper, newspaper or magazine they use, it could make a huge difference for everyone and change the world for the better.

Project Rain Gauge was formally launched last August 2011. It was a joint project of Smart Communication, Inc.(SMART) and Manila Observatory's KLIMA (Climate Change Center) in cooperation of the Philippine Atmospheric and Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration or also known as PAGASA and specially the Department of Education.
Project Rain Gauge initiate and aims to develop the awareness of students about the importance of rainfall monitoring and the implication of the amount of rainfall on various environmental problems such as erosion, landslides and typhoons. The general goal of the said project is to create a network of schools that monitors and record the amount of rainfall observation regularly, and be able to provide their local community and their campus a supplementary data on rainfall measurement.It also assists in disaster preparedness by providing a community-based early warning system for possible disasters like flash floods and landslides. And now from a starting group of 17, there are now 50 partner schools participating on Rainfall Monitoring like us, here in San Miguel National High School,we actively participates on all PRG activities. Our school was the very first school to have a Digital Rain Gauge, it was installed by the Smart Communication, Inc.(SMART) to complement the existing Manual Rain Gauge.
Now, it was our second year of participating on all PRG activities. In the previous Rain Watchers Award which was conducted last year, our school won the 2nd place and as a continuation of this endeavor we, the new members of the PRG team 2011 commit ourselves to continue and improve the practices which was started by the previous team. We also want to learn while enjoying and lastly we will also give our very best on this project to be an efficient and conscientious rain watcher.



As a response to be a diligent steward of the environment and as a rain watcher, we launched a project entitled "Lets collect PET". This project aims to collect Polyethylene terephthalate bottles which prevents drainages from clogging. The said project was first started in our section and it was successful and resulted to many positive outcomes like gaining extra income out of trash. The said project was also introduced to other sections and year levels.
Our Another School's Best practice was a blog full of experiences in our daily Living in such a way we help protect our nature in our own simple ways it is called The Low Carbon Diet journal or also known as LCD journal wherein students post their LCD for the week. The said blog was a collection of the collaborative effort of the group. They were asked to put pictures related to their Diet for the week. In this way, we can educate other students to be an active stewards of the environment at the same time they can also exploring and gaining knowledge in the Cyber world. This practice was applied to Sophomores Science Class students. ( different Blogs can be seen in our links)

San Miguel National High School
-San Miguel National High School, formerly San Miguel High School is one of the most active and known school in the province of Bulacan. It is located along Scuala St., Brgy. San Juan, San Miguel, Bulacan.