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Joliet — A Joliet fourth grader made his TV debut on WGN Morning News as this week’s Friday Forecaster.
Chase Galang attends Trinity Christian School in Shorewood and got to appear with meteorologist Paul Conrad during the broadcast this week.
Chase said in his on-air interview that he enjoys drawing and riding mountain bikes, and that he wants to be a physical therapist when he grows up.
“If someone is injured, I want to help them recover,” he told Conrad.
In order to be chosen as the Friday Forecaster, students must “show exemplary work in the classroom,” according to WGN. They also must attend a school in the Earth Network of schools, which partner to collect weather data that can be used in classroom STEM programs.
Trinity Christian School, a nondenominational pre-K through eighth-grade school, has been part of the Earth Network since October 2015, when it installed a Weatherbug weather station on its roof.
According to the school, the station feeds to monitors inside the school and tracks atmospheric conditions in real time, including wind speed and direction, precipitation, temperature and humidity. The system allows the school to monitor changing weather patterns locally.