The students in Melissa Zanni's class at Amazing Kids Academy got a special treat during school vacation week. As a culminating activity to their science unit on weather, Channel 12 Meteorologist Michelle Muscatello came to visit the class last Friday morning.
Coincidentally, a burst of snow had occurred during the night prior to her visit, covering some of the state with as much as three inches of snow in one hour's time, according to Muscatello. She arrived at Amazing Kids Academy after broadcasting the weather all morning.
Zanni and her students had spent the week creating a "green screen," which they used in their own video weather broadcast, especially prepared for Muscatello's visit. Zanni's son, Joshua, a 10th grade student at the Providence Career and Technical Academy, used his graphic design expertise to edit the video for the students. The students were able to preview their final product as they awaited Muscatello's arrival.
"During the week, we talked about weather, cloud types, who works at a news station and using a green screen for the weather," Zanni said. "They also made weather wheels during the week.”
As part of her presentation, Muscatello brought one of her favorite stories, "Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs," and some of the broadcasting tools that she uses when on the air, including her "clicker" and her ear clips that allow her to hear the producers of the show when she's on the air.
Muscatello asked the students to take a guess as to what time she must arrive at the news station in order to be on the air for her morning broadcast. After the students took their guesses, Muscatello let them know her schedule.
"My alarm goes off at 2:15 in the morning. I have to go to bed between 7:30 and 8 at night," said Muscatello, who has a 1- and a 3-year-old at home. "We do live tapings at 4 a.m. and at 4:30 a.m. we're on the air live.”
While showing the students her clicker, she explained what she does in front of the green screen, and how she is able to make it look as if she's looking at a real map.
"It's a little bit of 'weather trickery,'" she said. "I try to make it look as if I'm looking at a map on the green wall, but I'm actually looking at myself on a television type of monitor so that I can see myself. It takes a little getting used to; it's tricky at first."
She compared it to learning how to put on makeup in a mirror or tying a tie in a mirror.
Muscatello, one of four meteorologists at Channel 12, noted that quite a bit of the activity in the studio that used to be done by people is now done by computers, such as the camera controlling.
"It's been a learning curve for us," she said, noting that sometimes the unexpected will happen if the wrong command is given to the computers, making a camera focus on the wrong spot during a broadcast.
She showed the students some of the hand signals that the cameramen and producers used to use, prior to the use of automated computers, to let her know how she was doing on time.
"If they held up two fingers, one finger, or a half of a clock sign, it meant I had two minutes, one minute or 30 seconds," she said. She showed the students the hand signal for "wrap it up," and noted that she tends to be longwinded, so she would get that sign quite often.
"I have a tendency to go long, so I hear 'wrap it up' a lot," she said.
To make a connection with what the students had learned about cloud types, Muscatello talked to the students about different types of cloud formations, including mid-level clouds and low-level clouds.
"You can tell what kind of clouds there are just by holding up your hand," she said, demonstrating for the students by holding up her fist.
Muscatello had brought with her a "tornado maker" made out of two one-liter soda bottles and liquid and showed the kids how to shake it up to create a model of the clouds spinning during a tornado.
"This is something you can make at home," she said. She allowed several students to try hers out in front of the class.
After her presentation, the students in Zanni's class proudly showed Muscatello the weather video that they had made.
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