Schools and Satellites

Schools and Satellites (SaS) aims to better quantify and understand precipitation patterns in Ghana, West Africa. Understanding precipitation patterns is critical for water management anywhere. In West Africa, rain gauges are few and far between. Imagery from satellites like remote sensing data can be used to estimate precipitation and present a potential solution. However, current precipitation estimates from satellites for the region are very inaccurate. Improving the understanding of precipitation patterns is especially important for food production and food security in the region. The goal of SaS is to use machine learning to improve these precipitation estimates from satellites; ground-based precipitation measurements will be needed to train and validate the machine learning algorithm. The targeted citizen science audience are Junior High School students.

The current Citizen Observatory consists of about 45 citizen observers who take measurements with low-cast self-made rain gauges, that pass on and record data via the S4W-system. The real-time collected data appears on this data portal.

This project is developed by a consortium of the TU Delft, TAHMO Ghana, GMet, and S4W, and is funded by the CSEOLab. It started in September 2019. PULSAQUA has been responsible for the citizen science part of the project, including the roll out of the Citizen Observatory, the engagement process of schools and teachers, and the development of the educational module.  For more information, please take a look at the pitch presentation we made to win the grant, or go to our webpage.