As per the B.Ed course prescribed by BSAEU, a field visit is compulsory for semester-II students of Social Science discipline to accomplish their practicum of paper 1.2.7A. This year a visit to IMD (Indian Meteorological Department) Kolkata, was organized by the department of Geography of K.S.S Jain College of Education. Under the guidance and mentorship of Prof. Piyali Banerjee the students of geography method visited the place on 06/07/2023. There, the students get a brief discussion about the functioning of the agency, its sole responsibilities of meteorological observations, weather forecasting and seismology. A tour was given to the students in the office campus regarding the functioning and analysis of data from several instrumental devices in respect to weather forecasting. The devices were- Single and Double Stevenson Screen for calculating temperature, humidity, atmospheric pressure and dew point, Open pan evaporimeter, Ordinary and Self-recording rain gauge, Wet & Dry bulb thermometer, Maximum & Minimum thermometer, Anemometer, Barometer (kew pattern & Digital), Autographic instruments (Barograph, Thermograph & Hygrograph), Seismograph, Helicorder etc. Besides this a short rundown was given on how an automatic weather station runs. After this, an interactive session headed by Satyabrata Datta (Meteorologist-B) was conducted to enlighten the students regarding the WMO (World Meteorological Organization) types of forecasting of weather, different observational networks, surface observatory, radar observatory and pilot balloon observatory and concept of weather system. The visit ended on a good note with a digital session where the students were informed about the movement of clouds, forecast of cyclones, its scale of determination, its analysis and most importantly the essentiality and impact of Numerical Weather Forecast Prediction.
