First graders at the Castleton Corners elementary school kept a close eye on Chuck's Groundhog Day prediction of an early spring from Feb. 2, running right up to the beginning of the season Wednesday by diligently recording each day's temperature.
Chuck is obviously not going to shy away from a critique and stopped by the school with his handlers from the Staten Island Zoo Wednesday morning.
"We took the temperatures by using those boards over there," said first grader Lucas Garcia, who noted that there were more days above 40 degrees than below, the barometer students used to judge Chuck. "There were a lot of warm days."
In fact the students found that there were 24 days above 40 degrees and 21 days below.
First grader Philip Virata has a new found interest in weather through the class experiment and has not ruled out a future career in meteorology.
"I don't know yet, I have lots of choices," Philip said.
Kenneth C. Mitchell, executive director of the Staten Island Zoo, touted Chuck's track record of correct predictions at 80 percent, but he admitted that this year was close.
"It's great to partner with the students here at PS 29," Mitchell said. "It's great that they get to learn about meteorology through Groundhog Day, and they get to work with Chuck, who is, as we know, New York's premier meteorologist. He was right. It was a squeaker, but he was right."
Through the process, children learned about animal habitats and how weather affects them. The zoo and school have partnered together for eight years, but this was the first year students tracked Chuck's prediction by logging the temperatures on a daily chart, said Annmarie Vallebuona, assistant principal.
"We learned that groundhogs come out in the spring, and that they stay in their hole in the winter," said first grader Sal Costa of his new groundhog knowledge.