Schoolchildren will help Nasa scientists to understand one their own projects.
Since April, pupils at Carew Peel Forest School, in Mid-Canterbury, have been collecting information using the Globe (Global Learning and Observations to Benefit the Environment) programme.
The costs are covered by the Education Ministry and the programme is administered bythe University of Waikato.
Data collected by the pupils on rainfall, temperature, local cloud cover and cloud type will become part of a National Aeronautics and Space Administration project, Globe country co-ordinator John Lockley told the pupils this week.
Mr Lockley said that in 2004 Nasa would launch CloudSat, a satellite designed to measure cloud around the Earth.
CloudSat would transmit data to Earth at regular intervals, but the US scientists would not necessarily know what the data meant.
That is where the Globe programme would help, he said.
Because schools around the world collected the same data at the same time, their figures would help scientists to make sense of the CloudSat data.
Mr Lockley said New Zealand was the only Southern Hemisphere country involved.
Kay Ward, teacher in charge, said school became involved because of its direct link with information technology and the internet.
Each week, pupils collected the data and entered it into the Globe data archive.
Pupils could also use the resources of Globe, through the internet, to interpret their own data.
They could communicate with other schools involved in the project.
