WCCO weatherman visits Woodbury Elementary

• Weatherman teamwork

“Wolverine” weatherman Nick Plank shared the spotlight with WCCO’s Chris Shaffer on Oct. 9 during Woodbury Elementary’s newscast.

Talk about it

For the past two years, fourth grader Nick Plank has been Woodbury Elementary School’s weatherman — delivering the weather every Friday morning during the Wolverine News broadcast.

But on Oct. 9, Plank had to share the weatherman spotlight with none other than WCCO’s Chris Shaffer.

Plank approached Shaffer during this year’s Minnesota State Fair if he would be willing to come to Woodbury Elementary and be the guest weatherman for an episode. From there, everything just fell into place.”

“I thought it would be really fun if he would come and do the weather with me — he’s famous so I just thought ‘Why not?’” Plank said. “I’m really excited that he decided to come.”

During the broadcast, Plank and Shaffer delivered the weather together, and had some friendly banter with each other.

“I couldn’t sleep last night because I was nervous about the broadcast,” Plank said. “But I think it went really well.”

The “Wolverine News”

The Woverine News is a daily morning news program that is filmed and delivered by Woodbury Elementary’s fifth graders. One student is the cameraman, there are two news anchors and Plank is the weatherman who appears every Friday.

The way the newscast works is that each fifth grader takes a turn in the newsroom for a two-week period and alternates between cameraman and anchor.

“The newscast gives the students a chance to learn a lot of skills they may not necessarily learn in the classroom,” said media specialist Marla Hall.

Some of the lessons that the students take away from the newscast include public speaking, learning to be punctual, learning to be professional and they learn about technology.

“It’s an exciting chance to learn about the news,” camerawoman Jordan Bretwisch said. “And it’s fun to be on TV.”

Having fifth graders produce the news could be a challenge, but Hall said all of the students do a really good job with the news because they know the importance of it.

“It’s an honor for them, so they really take it seriously,” Hall said. “They do such a good job with it.”

Tags: elementary schools, woodbury elementary, chris shaffer, education, weatherman, wolverine, wcco, newscast