Online Weather Studies: National Dissemination and Collegial Professional Development Activity With Undergraduate Faculty in Minority-Serving Institutions

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Atmospheric Sciences (41)The American Meteorological Society (AMS) in cooperation with the US NationalWeather Service and the Department of the Geosciences of North Carolina's ElizabethCity State University is providing professional development opportunities for 100 faculty atminority institutions with the goal of increasing minority student participation inscience, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). Over a 4.5-year period, thisproject will attain this diversity-enhancing goal by making available to minority-servingcolleges and universities Online Weather Studies, an existing AMS-developed distance-learning course on the basics of atmospheric science partially delivered via the Internet.Greater minority student participation in STEM requires greater access toscientific learning experiences that engage student interest and develop their criticalthinking skills. Critical thinking and associated reasoning skills are considered essentialfor student success in STEM. Online Weather Studies is designed to meet this goalthrough electronic delivery of highly motivational investigations written to currentweather conditions. To facilitate adoption and implementation of Online WeatherStudies, the project provides professional development experiences for faculty (25 peryear for 4 years) via a 5-day summer workshop at the National Weather Service TrainingCenter (NWSTC) at Kansas City, MO plus a series of two-day workshops treatingscience content, pedagogical, and diversity issues as a regular feature of the AMS AnnualMeeting held each January.