Trends in the AMS Education Symposium and Highlights from 2012

The Department of Meteorology (now Atmospheric Sciences) at the University of Utah faced reductions in state funding in 2008 that reduced support for nontenured instructors at the same time that the faculty were becoming increasingly successful obtaining federally supported research grants. A faculty retreat and subsequent discussions led to substantive curriculum changes to modernize the curriculum, enhance course offerings for undergraduate and graduate students, and improve the overall efficiency of the academic program. Maintaining discipline standards and existing teaching loads were important constraints on these changes. Key features of the curriculum revisions for undergraduate majors included eliminating a very rigid course progression; shifting the emphasis from required courses to elective courses; offering many courses only every other year; and relying on half-semester short courses to survey subject areas rather than focusing in depth on fewer ones. The curriculum changes were evaluated through surveys and individual and focus group discussions of students and faculty. While the feedback suggests that the changes overall were beneficial, the transitional period during which the changes were implemented was difficult for faculty and students alike. Faculty members have opportunities now to adjust courses based on their experiences gained teaching these courses in their new format. The feedback from students and faculty suggests that building improved relationships and interactions among co-enrolled undergraduate and graduate students is the greatest need in order to improve the classroom learning environment

Research on Students\u27 Conceptual Understanding of Environmental, Oceanic, Atmospheric, and Climate Science Content

At the interface between atmosphere, hydrosphere, and biosphere, this theme chapter covers content that is societally crucial but publicly controversial and fraught by misconceptions and misinformation. Climate science is an interdisciplinary field that straddles the natural and social sciences; understanding its processes requires system-thinking, understanding mathematical models, and appreciation of its human and societal components. Recent data show that extreme weather and climate events have become more frequent in the past decades. These include extreme temperatures, floods, like the ones associated with the series of very powerful hurricanes that made an unprecedented number of landfalls in August and September 2017 and unusual drought conditions and forest fires across the Western US in the summer of 2017. Studies like these emphasize the complexity of climate science and highlight the importance of climate change adaptation. However, there is a significant disparity in the distribution of vulnerability and readiness to impacts of climate change around the world. In this theme chapter, authors have identified five grand challenges to the conceptual understanding of environmental, oceanic, atmospheric and climate science, and proposed strategies for the geoscience education research community

Hands-On Meteorology

Hands-On Meteorology is a collection of interactive concept models and active learning materials for meteorology instruction. The concept models illustrate conceptually difficult processes in atmospheric science. Users change parameters in the concept models and examine the outcomes of such changes. Concept models allow for student note keeping and data export. Active learning exercises are provided as guided instruction to the concept models and to assist teachers in developing lessons. Active learning exercises are also available for meteorology topics that currently do not have a concept model. Educational levels: High school, Undergraduate lower division

Severe and Hazardous Weather: An Introduction to High Impact Meteorology

On this website you will find links to current, forecast, and archived weather for use at home and in the classroom. In addition, there are more than fifty online examples demonstrating severe weather phenomena and the mechanisms for their formation. Links to photo galleries, animations, and demonstration applets on all topics of severe weather can be found in the left menu of each page. The severe weather topics included are: droughts, blizzards, snowstorms, windstorms, tornadoes, hailstorms, downbursts, lightning, El Nino, La Nina, tropcial cyclones, hurricanes, floods, heat waves, cold waves, lake effect snowstorms, thunderstorms, freezing precipitation and ice storms. Educational levels: High school, Intermediate elementary, Middle school, Undergraduate lower division, Undergraduate upper division

Women's Success in Science: The Role of Self -Efficacy and Resiliency in Building Social Capital

156 p.Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2008.The experiences of seven women pursuing undergraduate degrees in atmospheric sciences are examined through lenses constructed from social science theories of self-efficacy, resiliency and social capital. Each of the women successfully earned a Bachelor's degree in atmospheric sciences in spite of being the minority in a male-dominated field. Examination of individual characteristics and experiences of each woman support the theory that successful women in atmospheric sciences enter into the degree program with a strong science self-efficacy and that self-efficacy is built upon as the women continue working toward their degree. All women in this study display characteristics of individuals who are resilient---who are able to continue on in the pursuit of personal goals in the face of adversity. During their tenure as an undergraduate, they use their self-efficacy and resilient nature to develop social capital through relationship building. This social capital provides them with an entree into the atmospheric sciences community and facilitates their further development of meaningful, professional relationships. The findings of this research are used as a scaffold to develop recommended structures, both physical and social, that atmospheric science departments can develop in order to promote the success of women in their undergraduate programs.U of I OnlyRestricted to the U of I community idenfinitely during batch ingest of legacy ETD