Using the Amazing atmosphere to Foster Student Learning and Interest in Meteorology

Barrett, Bradford S.; Woods, John E.

doi:10.1175/bams-d-11-00020.1

Cited by 10 publications

(13 citation statements)

References 19 publications

(18 reference statements)

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“…Furthermore, the open-ended meteorology assessment questions were similar to those of Barrett and Woods (2012), who designed a short assessment instrument with open-ended questions and used that instrument to assess student learning in a meteorology STEM activity. The engineering assessment questions were designed specifically to address the issues of structural integrity in a high-wind environment that were tested in the hands-on portion of the module.…”

Section: Assessment: Instrument Design and Implementationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Meteorology meets engineering: an interdisciplinary STEM module for middle and early secondary school students

2014

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Background: Given the continued need to educate the public on both the meteorological and engineering hazards posed by the severe winds of a tornado, an interdisciplinary science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) module designed by the faculty from the Oceanography and Mechanical Engineering Departments at the United States Naval Academy (USNA) was developed to engage students ages 12 to 16 in the fields of meteorology and engineering. Interdisciplinary educational modules such as this one are becoming increasingly common components of academic outreach programs, but to our knowledge, this is one of the first to combine the fields of meteorology and engineering. While many studies have examined changes in student engagement and interest in the STEM fields as a result of participating in interdisciplinary activities such as this one, relatively fewer have focused on quantifying changes in student content knowledge. The primary purposes of this paper are to (1) describe our interdisciplinary STEM module in detail and (2) report immediate changes in students' knowledge on basic meteorological and engineering content as a result of their participation in the module. Results: Results from a quick, easy-to-administer assessment instrument given to students immediately before and after their participation in the 1-h module indicated that they learned basic content in both meteorology and engineering. Mean improvement of scores on the assessment questions was 40.2%, a change that was statistically significant at the 95% confidence level. Other studies that focus on quantifying student learning may wish to lengthen the time between student participation in the module and the administration of the post-module assessment. Conclusions: Our interdisciplinary module integrated material from meteorology and engineering and was successful at promoting student learning. We recommend that other institutions consider developing similar interdisciplinary STEM activities, and we particularly encourage the development of activities that relate to current events. Finally, we recommend assessing content learning as another way to measure the success of interdisciplinary STEM activities.

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Section: Assessment: Instrument Design and Implementationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Meteorology meets engineering: an interdisciplinary STEM module for middle and early secondary school students

2014

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“…The approach of taking atmospheric science students on an extended field excursion to "Tornado Alley" to forecast and observe severe storms is not new. The reader is referred to Godfrey et al 2011and Barrett and Woods (2012) for summary listings of similar courses…”

Section: Course Designmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The principal differences between our course and previous ones is the combination of integrated research-grade meteorological instrumentation in the framework of a small severe storms field campaign (Schroeder and Weiss 2008), and active dissemination of meteorological observations obtained with that equipment to operational and research meteorologists in near-real time (Sirvatka and Stenz 2019). The course described in this study, therefore, can be considered an updated version of the courses described by Godfrey et al (2011) and Barrett and Woods (2012).…”

Section: E850mentioning

confidence: 99%

Students of Purdue Observing Tornadic Thunderstorms for Research (SPOTTR) A Severe Storms Field Work Course at Purdue University

Tanamachi

Dawson

Parker

2020

Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society

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A summer course has been developed at Purdue University that leverages students’ intrinsic desire to observe tornadoes as a motivator for learning severe storms forecasting. Relative to previous “storm chasing” courses described in the literature, the Students of Purdue Observing Tornadic Thunderstorms for Research (SPOTTR) course is enhanced by active learning exercises, career exploration activities, and the inclusion of research-grade meteorological instrumentation in order to provide an authentic in-field experiential learning scenario. After teaching severe weather forecasting skills and deployment techniques for several meteorological instruments (such as a mobile radar, radiosondes, and disdrometers), the instructors then guide the students on a 1-week field trip to the Great Plains, where the group executes a miniature field campaign to collect high-quality meteorological observations in and near severe storms. On days with no targetable severe weather, the participants visit sites deemed beneficial to the students’ professional development. The final week of the course is spent performing retrospective case studies based on the observations collected, and distilling lessons learned. Surveys given to SPOTTR students show that students’ understanding of severe storms forecasting, technical skills, and career aspirations all improved as a result of having participated in the SPOTTR course, affirming the efficacy of the course design.

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“…application, analysis, synthesis, evaluation). In addition, forecasting contests and discussions of the current weather in the classroom can motivate student learning (Harrington et al , ; Skeeter, ; Barrett and Woods, ), inspire better grades (Hilliker, ) and result in better forecasts (Market, ; Bond and Mass, ; Suess et al , ). Finally, weather discussions help close the gap between the knowledge‐seeking professors and the goal‐seeking students (Roebber, ), because an otherwise sterile set of equations illustrating complicated physical concepts comes alive when being used to illustrate the current weather in the news or outside the window.…”

Section: Quantities Forecast Within the Weather Domains Of Manunicastmentioning

confidence: 99%

ManUniCast: a real-time weather and air-quality forecasting portal and app for teaching

Schultz

Anderson

Fairman

et al. 2015

Weather

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ManUniCast is a real‐time weather and air‐quality forecasting portal developed for education and outreach at the University of Manchester. The web portal http://manunicast.com displays model output from a weather research and forecast (WRF) simulation with 20km horizontal grid spacing over the North Atlantic and Europe, including a 4km nest over the UK and Ireland. Also available is output from a WRF‐Chem simulation at 12km grid spacing over the UK. The portal displays over 60 different meteorological, chemical and composition quantities. Both the portal and an accompanying mobile app are free for all to access. Educational opportunities for incorporating ManUniCast into existing courses are discussed.

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Using the Amazing atmosphere to Foster Student Learning and Interest in Meteorology

Abstract: After touring NOAA and Air Force Weather Agency facilities, students pore over numerical weather prediction output, surface observations, and satellite and radar imagery and then head to the field to view severe convective storms.

Cited by 10 publications

References 19 publications

Meteorology meets engineering: an interdisciplinary STEM module for middle and early secondary school students

Meteorology meets engineering: an interdisciplinary STEM module for middle and early secondary school students

Students of Purdue Observing Tornadic Thunderstorms for Research (SPOTTR) A Severe Storms Field Work Course at Purdue University

ManUniCast: a real-time weather and air-quality forecasting portal and app for teaching

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