In this activity, student teams explore the connections between parts of the Earth system by examining a time series of environmental data maps. Each student teams examines images for two variables and determines if there is a direct or inversely proportional relationship exhibited between them throughout the year. The variable pairs that student groups are observing include: insolation and surface temperature; cloud fraction and precipitation; aerosols and biosphere. This is one of six interrelated learning activities associated with the GLOBE Earth System Poster, "Exploring Connections in Year 2007," and includes a series of assessment and extension activities. GLOBE (Global Learning and Observation to Benefit the Environment) is a worldwide, hands-on, K-12 school-based science education program.

Student teams formulate and complete space/earth/ocean exploration-based design projects with weekly milestones. This course introduces core engineering themes, principles, and modes of thinking, and includes exercises in written and oral communication and team building. Specialized learning modules enable teams to focus on the knowledge required to complete their projects, such as machine elements, electronics, design process, visualization and communication. Examples of projects include surveying a lake for millfoil from a remote controlled aircraft, then sending out robotic harvesters to clear the invasive growth; and exploration to search for the evidence of life on a moon of Jupiter, with scientists participating through teleoperation and supervisory control of robots.

In this activity, student teams explore connections between parts of the Earth system, by examining a time series of environmental data maps. Each team examines a single variable displayed on a global data map, and identify the unit of measure, the range of values, and patterns they observe in the data. Variables include: insolation, surface temperature, precipitation, cloud fraction, aerosols, biopshere. This is one of six interrelated learning activities associated with the GLOBE Earth System Poster, "Exploring Connections in Year 2007," and includes a series of assessment and extension activities. GLOBE (Global Learning and Observation to Benefit the Environment) is a worldwide, hands-on, K-12 school-based science education program.

Students will explore time series plots and raw data to understand the role of sea surface temperature increases on arctic ice melt. This is part three of a four-part activity on polar science. The activity builds on the knowledge gained in Using Data and Images to Understand Albedo (part 2). Extension activities examining air and sea surface temperature in relation to changing Earth albedo are included. Information is provided on data access using the NOAA Earth System Research Laboratory Web site. This activity is one of several learning activities connected with the 2007 GLOBE Earth system poster.

In this middle school and high school unit, students compare and constrast Arctic expeditions of the past (1893-1896 Fram expedition) and the present (2019-2020 MOSAiC expedition) to prepare for the Arctic of the future.

Research physical scientist, Dr. Dalia Kirschbaum, is featured in this short (~3 min.) video. Dr. Kirschbaum explains how the integration of her initial interest in math and her subsequent interest in the science of natural disasters lead to her career focus of landslide modeling. Now part of the NASA Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) team, she communicates about the GPM mission and data to the public and to others who use it in their work and/or research.

This is a lesson about living on the Moon. Learners will use cooperative learning skills to design a self-sufficient lunar station.

In this activity, students investigate how pressure affects the temperature of air and how this relates to the formation of clouds in the troposphere. They will form a cloud in a bottle, find the dew point and relative humidity of air at different places in the school and use a chart to estimate how high that air would have to rise to form a cloud.

Members of the Department of Atmospheric Sciences at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign have designed a suite of atmospheric science learning modules for middle school students. The curriculum, which implements a flipped-classroom model, is cross-referenced with Common Core and Next Generation Science Standards. It introduces students to topics such as temperature, pressure, severe weather safety, climate change, and air pollution through short instructional videos and critical thinking activities. A goal of this project is to provide middle school science educators with resources to teach while fostering early development of math and science literacy. The work is funded by a National Science Foundation CAREER award. For a complete list of learning modules and to learn more about the curriculum, visit https://www.atmos.illinois.edu/~nriemer/education.html

This is a streamlined lesson for students to prepare for a Community Resilience Expo, focusing on flood.

This exercise is designed to present the realistic problems of forecasting weather. Lake effect snows are hard to forecast because they depend on information that isn't part of the regular set of information and involve some pretty specific things that integrate the location of the site with surrounding environment. Even places close by can get totally different forecasts. When you have a regional forecast, it doesn't really address lake effect snows, unless the forecaster really focuses. So the exercise aims to show the value of broad critical thinking in meteorology, and it is very dramatic, because the difference between 36 inches and whiteout and clear blue sky is undeniable. The exercise comes when students are 8 weeks into the class. The class is an AMS based class, which has already been described well in this workshop by Julie Snow from Slippery Rock. Our class is given in the fall semester and lake effect snow starts in October and is quite an issue in forecasts until April. The skills of a forecaster are tested, and you cannot use forecasts from nearby areas reliably. Finally, we live in a fantastic snow belt, so lake effect snow happens a lot. In a good year we get over 300 inches of snow, mostly at times that places nearby do not. You can drive to Houghton in the bright sun and be met by a wall of very active blizzard just a few miles out of town.

There are some excellent tutorials available from COMET, and outreach of the National Weather Service. I use one done by Greg Byrd, which is available online or in a power point format. There are a number of things that must be learned before forecasting. These include some fluid dynamics of plumes, latent heat, remote sensing, upper air mapping, and the use of models. We cannot cover all them completely. I try to introduce all these things and give people entry points into the juicy parts of these topics, but do not expect students to understand completely. One thing you can spend a long time on are the satellite images. Here is one, just to whet your interest: http://serc.carleton.edu/details/images/13586.html

I have the students make a list of the critical parameters they think might be needed for a successful lake effect forecast. This is a challenge to prepare, but the idea is to include things that are even marginally useful and to collect data to see what is most important. We get a list of parameters like this:


850 mb wind direction
850 mb temperature
Lake Superior surface temperature
fetch length
opposing bay?
Inversion layer height
topographic lift factor
wind shear evidence
upstream lake
upstream moisture factor
snow/ice cover issues


This list is pretty good, but deliberately not complete, and we encourage students to add other things they think might be important. The next step is to find where you can get this information. I have web data sources for most (see below), and some of them are interrelated. You can do this exercise for any site around Lake Superior or probably many other lakes as well. For specific sites, the fetch length, upstream lake and opposing bay information are obtainable directly from the wind direction if you have a good map (Google Earth). So a spreadsheet for parameters related to wind direction can be prepared in advance and these parameters can be immediately available from the wind direction. Nonetheless the issue of sources for all this stuff must be addressed in an effort that spans several hours. The use of models is needed to look into the future where possible.

Once students know what they are looking for and how to find it, the exercise starts its data collection. Every day or every 6 or 12 hours beginning when conditions get close to "LES favorable" students collect information on these LES predictors. They also make LES forecasts for each period and include that information in the spreadsheet. The next day the real snowfall data is added to the spreadsheet, and this can be used as validation data for the forecast. This data collection needs to be done for several weeks (November and December in my case, usually a good time for LES).

The data analysis is the most challenging part. Spreadsheet plots which test the sensitivity of various parameters singly and together are possible. There is a lot of sophistication possible if there is enough LES to analyze. Overall, results should be a good experience with imperfect data addressed to a real-time problem. Models and real data, remote sensing, and balloons are all integrated and there are quite obvious weaknesses.

On the final day of class student groups will compete by doing forecasting which employs the LES techniques. This might reflect the most recent snow event. A more important element of this submission will be their evaluation of LES prediction parameters. Not only do we consider the actual forecast, but we discuss which parameters were successful? Which are inconclusive? What suggestions for improved forecasts are possible from the experience? The format of this will be short presentations with time for discussion.

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The GLOBE Cave Protocol Field Guide utilizes existing GLOBE protocols to explore an extreme environment. Caves provide an opportunity to utilize GLOBE protocols to investigate underground environments and compare them to surface environments. Outside the cave, students record elevation, MUC, latitude and longitude, air temperature, relative humidity and air pressure. Inside the cave, students record air temperature, relative humidity and air pressure as well as observe and describe cave features in each room. Students also note evidence of biological activity and human impact. If water is present inside the cave, students record water temperature and pH. Follow up questions are included in the Field Guide.

Focusing on air, water, land and life, this video describes how these components are connected in the Earth system through the flow of energy, cycles of water and biogeochemistry. Methods of studying the Earth system, ranging from field observations to analysis of satellite images are discussed. This video is one of the 24-part instructional video series describing scientific protocols used by GLOBE (Global Learning and Observation to Benefit the Environment), a worldwide, hands-on, K-12 school-based science education program.

This video highlights students taking scientific measurements to support investigations in atmospheric science, hydrology, soils, and land cover. It shows students reporting data through the Web, creating scientific visualizations for analysis, and collaborating with students and scientists around the world. This is one two introductory videos in the 24-part GLOBE video series. GLOBE (Global Learning and Observation to Benefit the Environment) is a worldwide, hands-on, K-12 school-based science education program.

This video highlights students taking scientific measurements to support investigations in atmospheric science, hydrology, soils, and land cover. It shows students reporting data through the Web, creating scientific visualizations for analysis, and collaborating with students and scientists around the world. This is one of two introductory videos in the 24-part GLOBE video series. GLOBE (Global Learning and Observation to Benefit the Environment) is a worldwide, hands-on, K-12 school-based science education program.

This video describes how to select a soil infiltration study site, and demonstrates procedures used when taking soil infiltration in the field. Instructions for fabricating a necessary piece of field equipment, a dual-ring soil infiltrometer, are provided. The resource includes a video and a written transcript, and is supported by the Soil Infiltration Protocol in the GLOBE Teacher's Guide. This is one of five videos about soils in the 24-part instructional video series describing scientific protocols used by GLOBE (Global Learning and Observation to Benefit the Environment) a worldwide, hands-on, K-12 school-based science education program.

When New England was hit by Tropical Storm Irene in 2011, there was not a satellite monitoring tropical storms that far north; the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) was operating in a band between the 35-degree latitudes. The Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) mission will change that. GPM will build upon TRMM's capacity by examining a larger swath of Earth with instruments that are more advanced and more sensitive. This video introduces the GPM satellite, its instruments and their capabilities.

In this brief video, NASA scientists discuss the Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) mission and its role in studying and tracking Earth's freshwater resources. The GPM mission will advance our understanding of Earth's water and energy cycles, improve the forecasting of extreme events that cause natural disasters, and extend current capabilities of using satellite precipitation information to directly benefit society.

This course examines diagnostic studies of the Earth's atmosphere and discusses their implications for the theory of the structure and general circulation of the Earth's atmosphere. It includes some discussion of the validation and use of general circulation models as atmospheric analogs.