Next-Generation McIDAS for Classroom/Laboratory Instruction and Research

位于奥尔巴尼的纽约州立大学大气科学系希望通过购买下一代人机交互数据访问系统（McIDAS）来提高其本科教学和实验室经验的质量和广度，包括专业和非专业。有了这个系统，用户可以有效地处理和分析数字气象卫星图像，以及更传统的全球气象地面和高空观测资料，以供教学、实验室和研究用途。McIDAS将满足两个关键需求。首先，它可以在课堂上使用，让非科学专业的学生接触到可以影响他们日常生活的科学思想、概念和方法，使他们成为更了解全球天气、气候和环境问题的公民。二是增加大气科学专业本科生通过自主学习、本科生研究项目、天气学实验室应用、课堂项目和问题集以及丰富课程，接触基本气象概念和定量方法的机会；通过将McIDAS更有效地整合到日常的课堂和实验室教学中。下一代McIDAS解决了这些关键部门的需求，因为本地计算机的能力和增强的图形能力内置于广域工作站。本科教学和实验室经验的质量将大大提高，因为教师将第一次能够处理、分析和存档全球天气和气候案例，以供以后的教学和研究用途。此外，教职员工和学生将能够在McIDAS上应用本地生成的科学软件包来处理实时或存档的数据流，并连接到其他本地或国家计算机系统，以处理和分析额外的数据，以支持特殊实验室和研究项目

The Department of Atmospheric Science at the State University of New York at Albany would like to improve the quality and breadth of its undergraduate teaching and laboratory experience for both majors and non-majors through the purchase of a next-generation Man-Computer-Interactive Data Access System (McIDAS). With such a system users can effectively process and analyze digital meteorological satellite images as well as more conventional meteorological global surface and upper air observations for instructional, laboratory and research purposes. McIDAS will fill two critical needs. First it can be used in the classroom to expose nonscience majors to scientific ideas, concepts and methods that can have impact on their daily lives, allowing them to become more informed citizens about global weather, climate and environmental issues. Second is the need to increase opportunities for undergraduate students majoring in atmospheric science to be exposed to fundamental meteorological concepts and quantitative approaches to problems through independent study, undergraduate research projects, synoptic laboratory applications, classroom projects and problem sets, as well as curriculum enrichment, by integrating McIDAS more effectively into day-to-day classroom and laboratory teaching. The next generation McIDAS addresses these critical Departmental needs because of the local computer power and enhanced graphics capability built into the wideword workstation. The quality of the undergraduate teaching and laboratory experience would be improved considerably because for the first time instructors would be able to process, analyze and archive global weather and climate cases of interest for later instructional and research purposes. Additionally faculty members and students wold be able to apply locally generated scientific software packages on McIDAS to real time or archived datastreams as well as link into other local or national computer systems for the processing and analysis of additional data in support of special laboratory and research projects