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

大气科学(41)美国气象学会(AMS)与美国国家气象局和北卡罗来纳州伊丽莎白城州立大学地球科学系合作，为少数族裔机构的100名教师提供职业发展机会，目标是增加少数族裔学生参与科学、技术、工程和数学(STEM)。在4.5年的时间里，这个项目将通过向少数族裔服务的学院和大学提供在线天气研究来实现这一增强多样性的目标。在线气象研究是AMS开发的关于大气科学基础的现有远程学习课程，部分通过互联网教授。更多的少数族裔学生参与STEM需要更多地获得吸引学生兴趣并培养他们批判性思维能力的科学学习经验。批判性思维和相关的推理能力被认为是学生在STEM取得成功的关键。在线天气研究是为实现这一目标而设计的，它通过电子方式提供针对当前天气状况撰写的高度激励调查。为了促进在线天气研究的采用和实施，该项目通过在密苏里州堪萨斯城的国家天气服务培训中心(NWSTC)举办为期5天的夏季研讨会，以及每年1月举行的AMS年会的一系列为期两天的研讨会，为教师提供专业发展经验(每年25个，为期4年)，讨论科学内容、教学和多样性问题。

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.