Spreading the Word Spreading the Word: timeline In their own words: Denise Stephenson-Hawk

UCAR at 40 Who We Are Introduction One Planet, One Atmosphere Between Sun and Earth Measuring and Modeling When Weather Matters Most •Spreading the Word Knowledge for All Looking toward the Future UCAR at a Glance List of acronyms

1960s

1963 • First Seminar Series NCAR launches a lecture and seminar series aimed at recent postgraduates. The series soon evolves into the Advanced Study Program, which brings postdoctoral researchers to NCAR for one to two years.

1967 • A Lab is Born Almost 5,000 people attend an open house at the newly completed Mesa Lab in January. The public event helps establish the NCAR tradition of open access to I.M. Pei's creation. Some 70,000 visitors are touring the lab each year by the turn of the new century.

1973 • Atlanta Fellowships The Advanced Study Program sets up its Atlanta Fellowship program. Six college seniors from five predominantly African American colleges in Atlanta work alongside NCAR scientists while taking courses in FORTRAN and introductory atmospheric science. The program is later broadened to other colleges and universities and is succeeded by the NCAR-wide Summer Employment Program (see 1980).

1975 • Women at the Table At the 55th annual meeting of the American Meteorological Society in Denver, NCAR scientist Margaret LeMone organizes the first-ever AMS session on the role of women in atmospheric sciences. In 1992, LeMone becomes NCAR's first female senior scientist.

1977 • Bringing Disciplines Together A special summer conference on multidisciplinary research brings specialists from agriculture, engineering, economics, sociology, law, ecology, and biology to NCAR. The meeting deals with the relationship between people and the environment, particularly the atmosphere. NCAR's subsequent research on environmental and societal impacts draws keen interest and involvement from scientists, governments, and the public.

1980 • Summer Employment NCAR launches the Summer Employment Program. It brings undergraduates from underrepresented groups to NCAR for a summer of collaboration with scientists.

1985 • Visiting Scientists Teaming with the U.S. Navy and NOAA, UCAR establishes its Visiting Scientist Programs. A broad spectrum of researchers, from graduate students to senior scientists, apply to VSP, which arranges appointments at the Navy's environmental prediction facility or at NOAA prediction centers. VSP expands in the coming years to encompass several such programs involving a variety of partners.

1988 • CEDAR Takes Off As part of the U.S. Global Change Research Program, NSF begins its Coupling, Energetics, and Dynamics of Atmospheric Regions program, studying how energy is exchanged among levels of the upper atmosphere. Through the 1990s, NCAR hosts dozens of graduate students each summer for the annual CEDAR workshops.

1988 • Front-Page Climate Record heat, drought, and the congressional testimony of NASA scientist James Hansen bring the greenhouse effect and the risk of global warming to public attention. Stephen Schneider (now at Stanford University) and other NCAR scientists are soon called to Washington, D.C., to testify on the science behind global change.

1992 • LEARN Begins NCAR hosts its first three-summer institute for middle-school science teachers from four states; a later project involves teachers from rural Colorado. The scientific principles and inquiry-based learning conveyed in the NSF-funded LEARN (Laboratory Experience in Atmospheric Research at NCAR) project are passed on to nearly 2,000 other teachers who reach over 200,000 students each year.

1993 • Explaining Storms Thunderstorm Detectives begins a three-year tour of U.S. airports and science museums. Funded by NSF and created at NCAR, the interactive exhibit explains how research on wind shear resulted in a national detection and warning system for aviation. After its tour, Thunderstorm Detectives moves to the Mesa Lab to join new interactive exhibits from San Francisco's Exploratorium.

1994 • Science through Math With NSF support, a three-year demonstration effort shows the value of real-time weather data in teaching mathematics to middle schoolers. Modules from the Skymath project, including 16 classroom activities, are made available to teachers nationwide through the World Wide Web.

1996 • SOARS The first group of protégés in the Significant Opportunities in Atmospheric Research and Science program arrives in Boulder. SOARS is designed by UCAR and NSF to help increase the number of doctoral students in atmospheric science from underrepresented groups. To prepare them for graduate work, the protégés each spend several summers working closely with a range of volunteer mentors from NCAR, UCAR, and other participating research laboratories.

1997 • Digital Resources UCAR is chosen as home base for the Program for the Advancement of Geoscience Education. Through extensive university-based workshops, PAGE crafts a plan for coordinating electronic materials for undergraduate teaching in the atmospheric and related sciences. Later, PAGE becomes the program center for NSF's Digital Library for Earth System Education. DLESE will offer information, tools, and services and foster interactions and collaborations among educators serving a wide range of ages and abilities.