Construction of the System for Continuous Recording and Automatic Transmission of Environment Data via Telecomputing and Its Educational Usage

本项目(命名为CatRace)的计划如下：(1)建立一个廉价的系统，用于连续记录气温并通过远程计算自动传输数据。(2)将系统借给日本鹿儿岛县的几所学校至少一年，温度数据收集在鹿儿岛大学教育学院远程计算中心Kafe的CatRace BBS中。(3)通过互联网的CatRace主页和Kafe的CatRace BBS向公众提供温度数据，用于学校教育。合作学校固定在大口南国中、高野初级中学和西安室小学。自1996年4月1日起，这三所学校和教育学院每30分钟的温度数据就向公众开放。CatRace主页的URL是http：//www-rk。艾杜。鹿儿岛。交流电。JP/Catrace/传感器(热敏电阻)只需用专门设计的盖子贴在校舍的北墙上。然而，数据显示了自然行为，即空调或太阳直接辐射的影响很小。由于这些学校的地理条件通常不同，而且鹿儿岛的气象条件很有趣(例如经常受到台风袭击)，这些数据适合作为学校的教材。这些数据已经用于信息处理练习和科学课程，并有望对其他课程有用。CatRace主页上提供的信息越来越多，天气信息和温度图表。特别是，我们试图通过交互式用户界面来提供有选择的图形数据。

The program of the present project (named as CatRace) is the followings :(1) A cheap system is constructed for continuous air-temperature recording and for automatic data transfer via telecomputing.(2) The systems are lent to a few schools in Kagoshima prefecture (Japan) for at least one year and the temperature data are collected in the CatRace BBS of Kafe, the telecomputing-center of Faculty of Education, Kagoshima university.(3) The temperature data are offered to public for the purpose of school education through the CatRace home page of the internet and the CatRace BBS of Kafe.Up to March 1996, the cooperation schools are fixed to Okuchi-Minami junior high school, Takanosu junior high school and Nishi-Amuro elementary school. The temperature data of every 30 minutes at the three schools and the Faculty of Education are available for public use since April 1^<st>,1996. The URL of the CatRace home page is http : //www-rk. edu. kagoshima-u. ac. jp/catrace/.The sensor (thermistor) is simply attached on the northern wall of the school building with a specially designed cover. The data, however, show natural behavior, i.e., there are little influence of air-conditioner nor of direct radiation of the Sun. Since the geographical conditions of the schools are typically different and also Kagoshima is meteorologically interesting (often attacked by typhoons, for example), the data are suitable for the educational materials in school.The data are already used in the exercises of information processing and the classes of science, and are expected to be useful for other courses.The information given in the CatRace home page is increasing in variety ; weather information and graphs of the temperature. Especially we are trying to give a selective graphical data by interactive user interface.