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This article presents a semester-long, interdisciplinary project-based learning (PBL) suitable for secondary and postsecondary students enrolled in a second-semester (i.e., intermediate) meteorology course. This case-study approach builds on the research question "What atmospheric conditions lead to tornadoes, hail, and damaging winds locally?" Students work collaboratively in a series of five activities, using an online database analyzing map and weather data from a subset of severe weather events. Students synthesize the data by identifying the severe qualitative weather variables that appeared most frequently among the cases and modify, if necessary, accepted threshold values for the quantitative variables. Students finalize the project via an oral presentation and technical paper to transform their newly discovered knowledge into improved severe weather forecasting guidance for societal benefit. An analysis of pre- and postsurvey responses from a small student sample reveals increases in both the comfort and experience of the PBL's components, with the oral presentation showing the most significant impact. After the project, students could identify in greater depth those antecedent atmospheric conditions that generate tornadoes, hail, and strong winds.

Background: Surprisingly little is known from a research perspective about the conceptual development of children's understanding of rainbows and rainbow formation. Yet research has shown that teachers tend to overestimate the proportion of students' correct answers in this domain. The present cross-sectional study aims to rectify this shortcoming. Material and Methods: Primary school children aged 5, 8 and 11 years responded to various questions around rainbows and rainbow formation. The youngest children were also asked to draw pictures. Answers and drawings were evaluated in terms of scientific accuracy. Results: The outcomes demonstrate age-related increase in reference to scientific explanations of rainbows and their formation. While younger children's understanding was largely inaccurate or limited, the oldest children were more able to demonstrate more sophisticated forms of understanding. Conclusions: This clarification of the actual levels of conceptual understanding may serve useful when conceptualising pedagogy, lesson plans, or more general curricula in the early science classroom. Even in non-science domains, such as art or storytelling, recognising the differentiation between fact and myth in relation to rainbows could be of value.

The online learning environment can add substantial advantages to learning such as continuous access to material and the ability to foster learning through additional visual supplemental materials, but it can also add further challenges that may not be as evident when teaching traditional, face-to-face courses. An individual's place affiliation may impact learning outcomes in geographically-dependent science content-specific science courses such as geoscience courses. This study focused on challenges associated with teaching and assessing geographically-dependent content in online master's level geology and meteorology courses. Students in these courses were asked to identify their home regions prior to the start of the master's program. When assessments for both courses were analyzed using a repeated-measures test, meteorology courses revealed significant differences between students' home regions for multiple assessments.

Summer camps have proven to be effective tools to engage students in the geosciences. Findings from this study highlight perceptions and experiences of middle school students from predominantly African American school districts in Mississippi who attended a 3-d residence camp focused on increasing interest in the geosciences through an earth hazards theme. The 2013 summer camp was structured to emphasize three subject areas: geology, hydrology, and meteorology. Nine middle school students (seven males and two females) attended the camp developed and held at Mississippi State University. Students' pre- and postcamp understanding about geoscience processes and interest in and knowledge about geoscience careers were measured to evaluate the camp's success. Overall interest in geosciences increased after completing the program. Among the three subject areas emphasized in this camp, students gained more knowledge about geology than about the other two areas (hydrology and meteorology). Results indicate that hands-on and experiential learning methods, especially those held indoors or with optimal conditions outdoors, were most successful at stimulating interest.

In this paper, we present our main results of the post occupancy evaluation of thermal comfort of two primary schools constructed following the same plane, situated in two different climate zones. The first stage of the work consisted on measurements using meteorological equipments. These measurements are used to quantify the physical parameters of the thermal atmosphere, such as temperature, rate of relative humidity and wind speed prevailing inside classrooms. The second step aims to support the results of the first stage; and it is a psychological investigation using inquiry with users.

Interdisciplinarity and knowledge networking are at the core of current global, regional, and national initiatives concerning climate. Both scientifc knowledge and public participation are essential to enhance the capacity of different sectors and governments to respond to challenges posed by climate variability and change. Exchange and bridge building among disciplinary domains are needed as well as involvement of governmental agents and a variety of stakeholders in knowledge networks and quality assurance processes, with the aim of producing authoritative, relevant, and usable knowledge. This article presents initial results of ongoing research on a recently launched Regional Climate Center for Southern South America (RCC-SSA) that is distinguished by close partnership and continuous interaction. The dynamics of cooperation in this innovative interdisciplinary, interinstitutional, and trans-sector network are being ethnographically documented and their epistemic and political features analyzed. Echoing the World Meteorological Organization, combining perspectives of the meteorological community with diverse interests, expectations, and needs of the many relevant "users" is a core challenge for climate services in the region. Because of the broad diversity of decisions and decision makers, multiple networks of organizations or actors seek involvement of the best available physical, biological, social science, and stakeholder knowledge. They ask not just for predictions but for "translation" of climate information into outcomes of adaptation/mitigation actions. Current collaboration efforts offer lessons on how to understand and conceptualize new trends in research and political practices, with scientists of all backgrounds participating in deliberations involving technical claims and decision making. These lessons underscore the complexity and multilayered nature of difficulties and obstacles involved in co-production of knowledge.

The African Data Initiative started as a crowd-sourced campaign to improve the teaching of statistics in African universities. The analysis of climate data provides one suitable context to illustrate ideas that lead to a radical new form of teaching. The problem within the context comes first, the technicalities are largely reduced -- mathematics is supported by meta knowledge and backed up by modelling; calculations are reduced by user-friendly software that is also used by experts. The problems are treated similarly to research questions and the results are often easier to interpret, making sense as potential answers in their context. The criteria of this approach are compared to the framework proposed by W. G. Cobb to reform statistics education in the light of the latest developments in statistics, driven by the huge increase of data. Implementation details are presented around three components: case studies, data, and the required skills. Together, these three components describe an alternative education pathway centred around statistical problem solving. The focus on interpretations of results within a real context enables software, mathematical thinking and modelling to play a supportive role, which flattens the prerequisites of complex methods and encourages their use across all levels of education.

Students in introductory college science courses often have a simplified understanding of the scientific method. To introduce students to the complexity of the scientific process and the value of empirical observations, I implemented a semester-long assignment that required introductory-level college science students to build and calibrate weather instruments from household materials. Students built their choice of a thermometer, barometer, hygrometer, or an anemometer, with a calibrated scale to record changes. Students then observed weather with their instruments for a period of 5 days and wrote reports on their instruments and observations. I evaluated these reports to determine how well students engaged in the scientific processes, including experimentation with their instruments and analysis of their data. Assessment data suggests this assignment successfully engages students in the process of scientific inquiry and helps them gain research experience as well as a better understanding of what goes into empirical observations. It also has potential to help students build quantitative skills in data analysis and interpretation. The exploratory structure of this assignment could be successfully adapted for use in introductory-level courses in other science disciplines.

A survey of 691 Georgia teachers suggested that their students generally were not prepared for severe weather. Teachers also were somewhat dissatisfied with the quality of the teaching resources on weather and weather safety. Only 46 (7%) of the teachers were aware of the American Red Cross Masters of Disaster (MoD) weather science and safety curriculum. We conducted a week-long weather science and safety workshop for 49 Georgia teachers in the summers of 2008-2010 to introduce the MoD curriculum so that they could teach it to their students and share it with colleagues. Qualitative analyses of the teachers' and the authors' workshop goals revealed that teachers became more knowledgeable about weather science and safety and learned how to teach the MoD curriculum. Quantitative analyses of the teachers' pre- and post-workshop responses to the project measures revealed statistically significant increases at the workshop's conclusion in science teaching self-efficacy and in self-efficacy to teach weather science and safety. Teachers also evidenced statistically significant gains in their knowledge of weather science and safety concepts. A follow-up with teachers from the 2008 workshop revealed that they had shared the MoD curriculum with 77 teachers and had taught the curriculum to 724 students. We discussed the potential of the MoD curriculum to increase students' knowledge and preparation for weather hazards. In the supplemental materials, we provided a sample MoD lesson and alignments of the MoD curriculum with the Next Generation Science Standards.

This paper looks at those aspects of Indigenous Knowledge (IK) that are socially and culturally relevant in South Africa for teaching meteorological science concepts in a grade 9 geography class room using dialogical argumentation as an instructional model (DAIM). Focusing on the Western Cape Province, and using a quasi-experimental research design model, the study employed both quantitative and qualitative (mixed methods) to collect data in a public secondary school in Cape Town, in the Western Cape Province. The study employed a dialogical instructional model (DAIM) with an experimental group of learners exposed to the DAIM intervention, and recorded differences like: responses to the DAIM method of teaching/learning; learner performance (scores in the post MLT test); depth of learners' understanding about weather/meteorological concepts; their perceptions/attitudes towards Geography--between this group and a control group which had no intervention. Learners from the two groups were exposed to a meteorological literacy test (MLT) evaluation before and after the DAIM intervention. The results from the two groups were then compared and analysed according to the two theoretical frameworks that underpin the study namely: Toulmin's Argumentation Pattern--TAP [46] and Contiguity Argumentation Theory--CAT [23].

The study aimed to determine whether there was any significant difference in understanding levels between secondary school boys and girls on the concepts of environmental degradation, meteorology and climate change. Both structured survey and focus group discussions were used to collect information from 480 students, sampled randomly from 12 secondary schools in Morogoro region. The findings indicated that boys were significantly more knowledgeable than girls on the specified environmental concepts. This implies that girls lagged behind their counterparts in understanding important environmental concepts as specified in the school curriculum. Based on the findings of this study, it is recommended that girls should be inspired and encouraged to develop interest in natural science subjects which would enable them to broaden their understanding about environmental issues.

Addressing the need for an introductory atmospheric science course for nonscience majors, a course was developed that provides a general understanding of atmospheric processes by examining how meteorological events are portrayed in movies. The course also uses films to study the causes of, impacts associated with, and potential adaptations to climate change. Anonymous student course evaluations indicate that students believe incorporating movie clips into lectures helps them learn course material and generates positive student attitudes toward atmospheric science.

The Student Operational Aggie Doppler Radar Project (SOAP) involved 95 undergraduates in a research and education program to better understand the climatology of storms in southeast Texas from 2006-2010. This paper describes the structure, components, and implementation of the 1-credit-hour research course, comparing first-year participants' experiences and career outcomes with students who were engaged in SOAP for multiple years. Groups of five or six students, led by a senior-level undergraduate and mentored by a graduate student and faculty advisor, performed several daily research tasks, including producing precipitation forecasts, archiving observations, and operating and analyzing data from an S-band Doppler radar for precipitation events on their assigned day. Anonymous surveys given to SOAP students at the end of each semester indicated that student confidence in performing most SOAP tasks exhibited statistically significant positive correlations with their interest and experience in doing them. In addition, students participating in SOAP for multiple years were significantly more confident in performing program tasks than single-year participants (with correlations increasing an average of 19%) and were more likely to obtain meteorology or science-related employment upon graduation (94% versus 69%). First-year participants were significantly more likely to indicate that their interactions with undergraduate student leaders or peers were most beneficial, whereas interactions with the faculty advisor or graduate student mentors were equally or more important to returning students. Students were also more likely to consider research careers and matriculate to graduate programs as they participated longer in SOAP, suggesting research and education programs have a strong influence on students' career outcomes in addition to fostering positive self-efficacy.

The presence of geosciences in the curriculum of primary and secondary schools in Argentina has been highly dependent on educational policies that change frequently under political circumstances. Subjects related to geology, geophysics, meteorology, and astronomy make their appearance and disappear under the influence of educational initiatives that shift focus under changing political circumstances. This paper briefly refers to the evolution of the process in recent decades and describes the efforts made by the Department of Geological Sciences of the University of Buenos Aires to cope with the situation. In 1998, the Department established a science popularization program, AulaGEA ("geo-classroom" in English), with the goal of helping preuniversity students, teachers, and the general public acquire basic knowledge of the geosciences. This was accomplished through different activities and initiatives that are presented here with the hope that they can be useful and inspiring to others working in educational environments that pose similar challenges to geosciences education.

Since 1975, the Jackson State University Meteorology Program (JSUMP) has played a unique role in the preparation of minorities for careers in the atmospheric sciences. Through external partnerships, incorporation of undergraduate research, summer internships, and involvement in activities of the professional societies, the JSUMP has graduated around 55 atmospheric scientists from underrepresented minorities between 1978 and 2008. In recent years, about half of the graduates have continued on to graduate school. These contributions are important to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) goal to develop a more diverse workforce, in particular for the National Weather Service. The JSUMP has also become active in outreach activities to K-12 schools and the general public through workshops, camps, and Web sites.

Problem-Based Learning, despite recent controversies about its effectiveness, is used extensively as a teaching method throughout higher education. In meteorology, there has been little attempt to incorporate Problem-Based Learning techniques into the curriculum. Motivated by a desire to enhance the reflective engagement of students within a current field course module, this project describes the implementation of two test Problem-Based Learning activities and testing and improvement using several different and complementary means of evaluation. By the end of a 2-year program of design, implementation, testing, and reflection and re-evaluation, two robust, engaging activities have been developed that provide an enhanced and diverse learning environment in the field course. The results suggest that Problem-Based Learning techniques would be a useful addition to the meteorology curriculum and suggestions for courses and activities that may benefit from this approach are included in the conclusions.

We present a user-friendly, data-driven Web site (http://thermal.gg.utah.edu/facilities/epo/) for a geothermal, climate change observatory that is educational for the general public, students, and researchers alike. The Emigrant Pass Observatory (EPO), located in the Grouse Creek Mountains in northwestern Utah, gathers both meteorological data (solar radiation, air temperature, rainfall, wind speed and direction, and snow depth) and subsurface temperatures in shallow drillholes. Our website has three main functions: (1) it provides a tutorial for understanding both local climate and climate change, and their relation to diffusion of temperatures into the Earth's subsurface; (2) it facilitates user-defined accessibility to download available climate data; and (3) it contains lesson ideas for using real data to understand local climate. EPO data and resources are ideal for active learning projects. Additionally, our collaboration with ongoing outreach projects (e.g., NSF-sponsored GK-12) in Utah promote the use and understanding of climate change data among students and educators, thus filling a valuable niche in local education.

Undergraduate students acquire a deeper understanding of scientific principles through first-hand experience. To enhance the learning environment for atmospheric science majors, the University of North Carolina at Asheville has developed the severe weather field experience. Participants travel to Tornado Alley in the Great Plains to forecast and observe convective storms for two weeks. The objectives of the course encompass far more than observing severe storms. On days with nonthreatening weather in the Great Plains, students participate in an array of activities that provide exposure to facilities and interaction with professionals in various sectors of meteorology. While the allure of chasing storms initially prompts the students to enroll in the course, the focused career-development aspect of the curriculum increases awareness for the varied career options in the atmospheric sciences and helps students discover where their own capabilities and interests might best suit the discipline. The course thus offers students a comprehensive career-development experience woven within a thrilling adventure.

This paper describes a new severe weather laboratory exercise for an Introductory Weather and Climate class, appropriate for first and second year college students (including nonscience majors), that incorporates inquiry-based learning techniques. In the lab, students play the role of meteorologists making forecasts for severe weather. The exercise is designed to teach students how to identify the atmospheric conditions that promote severe weather and how to prepare a severe weather forecast. We utilize collaborative learning in the lab exercise where students are encouraged to work in teams to accomplish the class assignment. Working in teams teaches students about how modern interdisciplinary science is conducted, as well as creates accountability for students to learn the material and complete their share of the work. Our results show that important content knowledge is maintained in comparison with a traditional lab and that students found the new lab more engaging.

The correspondence education is the important part of the national education, and its education objects give priority to working staffs. The objects of the meteorological correspondence education are working staffs in the meteorological departments, and most of these students have engaged in the operation work for a long time, keeping at a distance with theoretical learning, and because the attended study time of correspondence education is deficient, and most of them are difficult to study. English is a basic course in the meteorological correspondence education, and the students have different English levels, so the English teaching becomes difficult. To enhance the teaching level of the meteorological correspondence education, the existing problems in the current meteorological correspondence English teaching are analyzed, and the methods of adults' English learning are discussed in this article.

Geographic education is more effective when students actively participate by developing hypotheses, designing experiments, collecting and analyzing data, and discussing results. We describe an innovative pedagogical approach, in which students learn physical geography concepts by analyzing environmental data collected in contrasting environments in Santa Barbara County, CA. The major components of this approach include a local network of micrometeorology stations (the Innovative Datasets for Environmental Analysis by Students (IDEAS network)), student field trips, a web portal (www.geog.ucsb.edu/ideas) and analysis tools which support student education and research. Examples of student work, graded rubrics, course evaluation scores, and instructor observations demonstrate the effectiveness of this approach. The most serious limitation is the high cost of equipment given the low number of students initially involved, a weakness that can be addressed through expanded use of this facility by other physical geography classes and institutions, facilitated by the IDEAS website, and increased enrollment in existing classes.

This paper studies the current evaluation system for the online training program in meteorology and hydrology. CIPP model that includes context evaluation, input evaluation, process evaluation and product evaluation differs from Kirkpatrick model including reactions evaluation, learning evaluation, transfer evaluation and results evaluation in that the subject of evaluation is different. We take the advantages of the CIPP model and Kirkpatrick model in constructing an evaluation system for online training programs in meteorology and hydrology held by the WMO Regional Training Centre Nanjing, China so as to improve the effectiveness of the training programs and meet the demand of the national meteorological and hydrological services.

The "flipped classroom" pedagogical approach is used for a combined undergraduate and graduate computer programming course in meteorology. Details of how the course was flipped are discussed, as well as how student perceptions of the approach, which were gathered from qualitative feedback collected throughout the semester, evolved. Overall, students were largely supportive of using the flipped classroom and remained so throughout the semester. The availability of resources, including the textbook, online videos, and classroom collaboration, was cited as a key component of students being able to succeed. Working through assignments in a collaborative manner with the assistance of other students and the instructor also contributed to the majority of students perceiving the flipped classroom as being effective for their learning. A small number felt the approach was ineffective and expressed a desire for a lecture component; in fact, an increasing number of students identified a need for a brief lecture in class, particularly for more advanced programming topics covered toward the end of the semester. Although there were challenges for students, many felt that the flipped classroom improved their critical thinking skills and gave them confidence to apply computer programming as an analysis tool outside of the classroom.

This paper describes the details of a National Science Foundation multi-year educational project at the University of Oklahoma (OU). The goal of this comprehensive active-learning and hands-on laboratory program is to develop an interdisciplinary program, in which engineering, geoscience, and meteorology students participate, which forms a community of university scholars. The program is intended to generate a unique, interdisciplinary, research-oriented learning environment that will train future engineers and meteorologists in the full set of competencies needed to take raw radar data to detect weather and aircraft. The program involves new coursework and is oriented around other successful programs to ensure wide distribution by many students and scientists. Supported by the Division of Undergraduate at the NSF, the project began with a Phase II grant in the fall of 2004, which also recently received a Phase II grant to refine the project through 2010. In keeping with the global movement of electronic knowledge delivery via written, as well as visual media, several weblinks have been established for this paper.

The authors describe the design and formative evaluation of a sensor toolkit for Android smartphones and tablets that supports inquiry-based science learning. The Sense-it app enables a user to access all the motion, environmental and position sensors available on a device, linking these to a website for shared crowd-sourced investigations. The authors describe the four investigations with the toolkit: environmental noise, sunlight levels, air pressure and rainfall, and the speed of lifts (elevators). These show a variety of methods to initiate, orchestrate and conclude inquiry-based science learning. Two of the missions are in the context of a study to develop a community of inquiry around weather and meteorology. The others are intended to engage members of the public in practical science activities. Analysis of the missions and the associated online discussions reveals that the Sense-it toolkit can be adopted for engaging science investigations, though the practical issue of calibrating sensors on personal devices needs to be addressed.