EO Annual Scientific Report 2004

Education and Outreach ( EO) has attained important milestones this year in the enhancement of exhibits and tour programs reaching K-12 and public visitors at the NCAR Mesa Lab, the expansion of web-based resources, facilitation of professional development workshops for teachers, and collaborations with scientists in implementing education and public outreach components of research programs. These activities further NCAR’s mission to partner with the university community to promote scientific literacy and advance all levels of education and training in subjects related to Earth’s atmosphere. Ongoing programs such as SOARS® and the NCAR Undergraduate Leadership Workshop continue to provide an important service by attracting undergraduates into the Geosciences. The SOARS program and the translation of Windows to the Universe into Spanish also further our goal to interest diverse populations in our fields of research. EO’s activities are guided by the UCAR Education and Outreach Strategic Plan adopted in June 2001 ( http://www.ucar.edu/educ_outreach/stratplan.html).

Highlights

Web Outreach - Close collaboration of the UCAR Office of Education and Outreach (UCAR- EO) with the institution-wide WORD committee has resulted in smooth integration of the new NCAR/UCAR umbrella web site with the NCAR Education and Outreach web site (www.ucar.edu/eo), developed with support from the NCAR Strategic Initiative. Visitors can now easily navigate to educational resources for the public, children, K-12 teachers, science enthusiasts, and undergraduate to graduate students by clicking on a conspicuous Education “tab” on the umbrella site’s home page. The home page for Windows to the Universe Web (W2U) site (www.windows.ucar.edu) has been redesigned in 2004 to facilitate more efficient navigation to its immense content areas spanning the Earth and space science, with arts and humanities connections. Over one half of the web site has been translated into Spanish, drawing 10 – 20 percent of site traffic as new pages are unveiled in Spanish. NCAR SI funding has enabled a major push to expand and update the climate, weather, and global change pages. Content about space weather has been consolidated, revised, and expanded, especially with a focus on a new audience, students in undergraduate survey courses. An exciting new interface has been developed to allow scientists at NCAR and around the world to collaborate with W2U staff on the development of new content.

Educational Workshops - The UCAR campuses were energized during the months of June – August by visitors participating in three workshops convened by UCAR- EO. The NCAR Undergraduate Leadership Workshop (ULW) welcomed 22 college juniors from 22 universities in the US and Canada. The goal of this program is to encourage these gifted students, nominated and co-sponsored by their faculty, to continue their studies into graduate programs and to enter STEM careers. Teachers from across the nation convened in groups of 20 for the NCAR Climate and Global Change Workshop and the Workshop on Modeling in the Geosciences. Careful evaluation and attention to lessons learned from past summer workshops made these two-week, intensive professional development opportunities for middle school master-educators particularly effective this year.

Public Visitor and Exhibits Programs - The Mesa Lab continues to be a magnet to people of all ages who wish to learn about our science and enjoy the building’s architecture. The Climate Discovery exhibit reached its first anniversary in July 2004, with accolades from visitors completing satisfaction surveys. The audiotour has conveyed information about weather, climate, technology, computing, and the societal impacts of weather and climate change to nearly 2,700 visitors (27% children and 73% adults). Teachers from local public schools serving large numbers of students from the Hispanic community have participated in a workshop about the Spanish language resources available through the audiotour and the Windows to the Universe web site, and opportunities for further collaborations to advance diversity in education are growing. Collaborations with NCAR scientists and funding for education within research grants in ACD, ESIG, and HAO have allowed UCAR- EO to draft units about “The Little Ice Age” and “The Sun-Earth Connection” for a new Teachers Guide to the Climate Discovery exhibit. These resources will be field tested in classrooms and evaluated by teachers before their dissemination in the coming year.

Undergraduate Education

SOARS

SOARS® (http://www.ucar.edu/soars) was launched in 1995 to support the national goal of “a diverse, internationally competitive, and globally engaged workforce of scientists, engineers, and well-prepared citizens.” SOARS is dedicated to increasing the number of students from historically under-represented groups enrolled in graduate programs in the atmospheric and related sciences, with the goal of increasing ethnic diversity within the scientific community of the future. Since 1996, DOE-Global Change Education Program, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, NASA Education and Public Outreach through NCAR HAO, NOAA Office of Global Programs, and the University of Colorado Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences have joined NSF and UCAR as program sponsors.

In February of 2004, Rajul Pandya succeeded Thomas Windham as director and principal investigator of SOARS. Dr. Windham left SOARS to become the senior advisor for science and engineering workforce at NSF. Among other duties, Dr. Windham oversees NSF's efforts to broaden participation in S&E careers and serves as NSF's principal liaison to minority-serving institutions. Dr. Pandya was chosen by UCAR in an internal search presided over by the SOARS Steering Committee. He has been involved with SOARS for several years, acting as both a science and writing mentor for two SOARS protégés. He holds a Ph.D. in Atmospheric Science and brings experience with curriculum development and pedagogy. His recent research has explored the use of visualization technologies to enhance teaching and learning in the geosciences. In that capacity he has been involved in the DLESE project, where he served as the community and outreach liaison for the DLESE Program Center before joining SOARS.

At the heart of SOARS is a ten-week summer immersion program at UCAR/NCAR/UOP or the laboratories of a SOARS sponsor, where SOARS students (protégés) are provided opportunities to experience working as research scientists. Each summer, protégés conduct research projects and participate in a nine-week scientific writing and communication workshop. Protégés help define their individual project, conduct research, write a formal research paper, and present their results at a colloquium. Protégés receive a competitive stipend, housing, local transportation, and round-trip airfare to participate in the summer program.

2004 Summer Highlights. Twenty-four protégés from across the United States and Puerto Rico completed the 2004 summer program. Nineteen protégés returned for their second, third, or fourth SOARS summer; five were new to SOARS. Eighteen protégés worked on projects at NCAR, two within the UCAR Office of Programs, two at the University of Colorado-Boulder, and two at NOAA. Each protégé was paired with a science research and a scientific writing and communication mentor. First-year protégés were also paired with a community mentor and a peer mentor. Six of the 19 returning protégés served as peer mentors to new protégés.

Each protégé conducted an individual research project, prepared a written research report, and presented their research results at the August 9-11 SOARS Protégé Colloquium. Seven protégés have had abstracts of their summer research results accepted for presentation at the Society for Advancement of Chicanos and Native Americans in Science (SACNAS) National Conference. In addition, 20 abstracts have been or will be submitted for presentation at upcoming student or professional meetings during the 2004-2005 academic year. A listing of summer 2004 protégés, mentors, and research topics is available online at: http://www.ucar.edu/soars/research/04researchtop.htm.

1996-2004 Program Results. Since the 1996 inaugural summer, 90 protégés have participated in SOARS. Participants’ ethnicity and gender are outlined in Table 1.

Ethnicity and gender	Number of protégés	Percent of protégé population
African American/Black	38	42%
Hispanic/Latino/Chicano	29	32%
Native American/Indian	13	14%
Asian American & Pacific Islander	4	4%
European American	6	7%
Female	54	60%
Male	36	40%

Table 1. Ethnicity and Gender Representation of SOARS Protégés, 1996-2004

As of fall 2004, twenty-nine protégés have completed their masters' degrees and one has successfully defended her PhD (in Computational and Applied Mathematics). Fifty-eight protégés have completed bachelor's degrees in an atmospheric or related science; two have completed associate's degrees and are now enrolled with a science major at a four-year research university. Sixteen protégés are currently in the professional scientific or engineering workforce.

Thirty-four SOARS protégés are enrolled in graduate programs in an atmospheric or related science. Three are AMS graduate fellows; three are NSF graduate fellows. Twenty-three are enrolled in master's programs, and 11 are pursuing doctoral degrees—nine of these 11 have completed master’s degrees. Eighteen protégés are currently enrolled in bachelor's programs in the atmospheric or related sciences. Over the program’s nine years, 17 protégés have left the program, five to pursue careers in other fields, 11 due to unsatisfactory performance, and one for personal reasons.

Since its inception, SOARS protégés have presented more than 90 posters and more than 50 oral papers at regional, national, and international scientific conferences, with several receiving awards. The summer research of at least eight protégés has resulted in coauthored papers published in peer-reviewed journals. A listing of oral presentations is available online at: http://www.ucar.edu/soars/presentations.htm, and a listing of poster presentations is available at http://www.ucar.edu/soars/posters.htm. An online list of publications is available at: http://www.ucar.edu/soars/publications.htm

2004 SOARS Protégés: Front Row (L to R): Rebecca Chan, Erik Noble, Carlos Medina, Anthony Didlake, Melanie Zauscher, Erick Adame. Back Row (L to R): Tamara Singleton, Braxton Edwards, Shanna-Shaye Forbes, Andro Ríos, Deanna Hence, Bret Harper, Cherelle Blazer, Tanya Craft, D. Matthew Coleman, Roberto Cancel, Clarence Mann, Dione Rossiter, Melissa Burt, Damian Mattis. Not Pictured: Atzel Drevón, Garymar dé Rivera Rivera, Nancy Rivera Rivera, Amber Reynolds.

A Model Program. In December 2001 President Bush announced that SOARS had been selected as one of ten institutions receiving the sixth annual Presidential Award for Excellence in Science, Mathematics, and Engineering Mentoring. The award recognizes SOARS for “embodying excellence in mentoring under-represented students and encouraging their significant achievement in science, mathematics, and engineering.”

Jeffrey Gaffney, chief scientist for DOE’s Global Change Education Program (GCEP), visited SOARS several times. Gaffney’s observations led him and his colleagues to adopt the SOARS model in designing GCEP’s Summer Undergraduate Experience program. Other programs across the United States have recognized SOARS as a model and incorporated elements of the SOARS program into their undergraduate internship programs. SOARS is the subject of an NSF-funded study being performed by the Ethnography and Evaluation Research Center to Advance Research and Teaching in the Social Sciences, University of Colorado at Boulder. This study will be completed and a report available in spring of 2005.

In addition, the article, “Significant Opportunities in Atmospheric Research and Science (SOARS â ): An Overview of the Program and its First Eight Years,” by Thomas L. Windham, Amy J. Stevermer, and Richard A. Anthes was published in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society: Vol. 85, No. 1, pp. 42–47. The article is available online from the AMS journals online website: http://ams.allenpress.com/pdfserv/i1520-0477-085-01-0042.pdf

NCAR Undergraduate Leadership Workshop

EO hosted the third NCAR Undergraduate Leadership Workshop (ULW) (www.ucar.edu/educ_outreach/ulw) on June 21 – 25 with the purpose of informing undergraduates in the geosciences about exciting opportunities for graduate study, research, and careers in the atmospheric and related sciences. The five-day program established informal dialogue between students and research scientists as they explored laboratories, instrumentation, and computing facilities that support studies on weather, climate, solar physics, the Sun-Earth system, and impacts of weather and climate on societies across the globe. The students were initially presented with a model of leadership and later engaged in activities to stimulate consideration of the qualities of recognized leaders and methods for nurturing their own personal leadership attributes. Throughout the week, scientist shared personal anecdotes with the students highlighting the importance of developing personal and professional leadership skills necessary to succeed in and support the atmospheric sciences in the coming decades. Over the past three years, 23 UCAR member universities and 8 academic affiliates have co-sponsored a total of 64 student participants to the ULW by covering their travel costs, with NCAR providing funding for their lodging, meals, and workshop activities. The vast majority of the students are either planning or are currently engaged in graduate studies. The annual AMS meeting serves as a venue in which they enjoy coming together to meet the most recent “alums” of the ULW and to catch up with each other on recent developments in their studies and career plans.

Professional Educator Workshops

EO disseminates UCAR’s science, mathematics, engineering, and technology to the nation’s K-12 schools by bringing a select and diverse group of geoscience educators to NCAR to learn about our educational resources developed for classroom use. Acceptance to a workshop requires a commitment from each teacher to provide outreach and training to a minimum of 40 other teachers in their school district or region through which they share the new science content and resources accessed and experienced in the summer workshop.

NCAR Geoscience Education Workshop (http://www.ucar.edu/educ_outreach/gew/). The Global and Climate Change Geoscience Education Workshop was held from July 26 to August 6, 2004, enrolling 19 master science teachers of grades 6 through 12 from across the nation. In addition to lectures from scientists on climate topics, teachers explored relevant computer software, web-based resources, and curriculum and inquiry-based activities. They also participated in field trips, received instruction on numerous hands-on activities and demonstrations of fundamental scientific and pedagogical principles, and engaged in dialogue about how climate change science can be brought into the classroom.

Modeling in the Geosciences Workshop (http://www.ucar.edu/educ_outreach/gew/). Between June 21 to July 2, 2004, EO presented the second workshop on modeling in the geosciences. Teachers selected from a national applicant pool spent two weeks with scientists from the UCAR community, GIS and modeling experts, and EO staff to explore the context of modeling in the geosciences. They used STELLA software to build models and develop applications of these and other tools to enhance classroom practice and student achievement in the sciences, technology, and mathematics. They will provide training for colleagues in their home districts, participate in a fall virtual workshop, and reconvene in Boulder in Spring 2005 to present modeling resources they have developed for implementation in their classrooms.

Collaborations with Scientists in Educational Programs

During 2004, EO wrote letters of thanks to 100 NCAR scientists who volunteered to support various education programs. This represents an exceptional level of interest and collaboration bridging research and education. Scientists participate in EO as content advisors on web sites, exhibits, and curriculum; speakers in workshops and tours; community ambassadors at special events and conferences; and partners in grant proposals.

Research Grants Supporting EO. Examples of EO activities funded by scientists’ research proposals include:

HIAPER Education and Outreach Program. NCAR has funded an EO effort to document in High Definition TV film the major milestones in the modification of the new NSF-funded Gulfstream V aircraft known as HIAPER. EO has a goal of bringing the story of how science, technology, engineering, and technology (STEM) interplay in the story of HIAPER to national audiences through educational television programming and exhibit partnerships with major museums across the nation. An ambitious grant writing effort is under way to fund the HIAPER EO program. NCAR’s support has enabled EO to contract Geoffrey Haines Stiles, producer of LIVE FROM and PASSPORT TO KNOWLEDGE PBS programs to interview scientists about their vision for HIAPER’s contributions to the future of atmospheric and climate research; engineers on the challenges of modifying the aircraft for service to science; technicians who have built the aircraft and applied their skills to follow engineers’ instructions; and NSF staff who have advocated for HIAPER’s development. These interviewees, some representing diversity in the workforce, offer compelling stories about why people love their STEM careers and what preparation is required for students to enter these fields. Haines-Stiles flew this summer on the C-130’s ACME mission to capture the contrasts between the capabilities of this important and long-standing member of the NSF fleet and the new HIAPER aircraft. The HIAPER EO programs will be accompanied with classroom lessons for K-12 students in addition to fascinating web-based information about science campaigns, possibly including access to real time data and discussions with scientists while the aircraft is deployed to the far reaches of the earth on science missions.

Community and Public Services

Informal Science Education and Public Programs

NCAR's public education programs aim to increase the scientific literacy of the nation through numerous efforts reaching the general public, teachers, and students who visit the Mesa Laboratory for a tour or partake in other EO online resources. The focus is on enhancing understanding among all ages about the atmosphere as part of the Earth system, the impact of weather and climate on society, and the application of scientific knowledge to decision making about careers, lifestyles, and public policies. In addition to coordinating exhibits, tours, classroom programs, and public events, the Public Visitor and Exhibits Programs frequently recruit NCAR scientists to demonstrate scientific principles underlying the atmospheric sciences. An estimated 80,000 visitors a year come to the NCAR Mesa Lab to enjoy such activities and the Mesa Lab’s science center.

Events and Exhibits

Super Science Saturday. For the eighth consecutive year, EO has been preparing for the its largest, annual public science event, the late October Super Science Saturday which attracts several thousand families and young children to the Mesa Lab. This daylong science celebration features multiple science presentations, demonstrations, and special workshops designed to facilitate understanding of the scientific process and student participation in school science fairs. The theme of this year’s SSS event is “Super Cool Science.” These programs are funded in part by Friends of UCAR and supported by numerous other science institutions and programs which collaborate to make this a memorable day for the local community.

Wild Science Saturdays . A new collaboration with the Wild Bear Discovery Center and Colorado’s Scientific and Cultural Facilities District (SCFD), promoter of science and art literacy in the Boulder County community, has broadened EO’s schedule of public events in 2004. Two new Science Saturdays, “Nature’s Architects” and “Avalanches,” and Wild Earth Day, a multi-program Earth Day celebration, allowed NCAR to leverage its outstanding reputation in the community for Super Science Saturday (a fall event) to open its doors on winter and spring week-ends to even more students, teachers, and adults.

Science Exhibits. This year EO has worked to implement goals in its five-year plan (2002- 2007) for the Mesa Lab Exhibits that includes annual assessment of science content, the replacement and enhancement of current exhibits, and development of new ones. A survey of 50 visitors who completed a questionnaire after viewing the Climate Futures Exhibit in July found that 98% would recommend the exhibit to friends or family members. A scientific advisory group with representation from all NCAR divisions advises the Exhibits Program as it implements the plan. With support from NCAR’s Strategic Initiative fund, a number of the plan’s recommendations have been accomplished this year. Development of “Climate Future,” the final gallery of NCAR’s new, multi-media exhibit on climate and climate change, has been the central focus of discussion. The new exhibit component will feature in-depth information about climate change research and the impacts and responses anticipated under several model scenarios for future global climate change. A GI projection sphere will display NCAR climate models and a plasma display will highlight NCAR researchers’ perspectives on the challenge of studying and predicting Earth’s future climate. Plans are to obtain public feedback and suggestions on a prototype exhibit and install the “Climate Future” exhibit in early 2005.

Multiple updates of “Climate Now” and “Climate Past” exhibit content and components have been completed. A slideshow on meteorological optics has been added to the upgraded ML Theater exhibit, and a new exhibit, “Real-time Lighting,” which displays Unidata’s lightning site on a large plasma, was installed this spring. The Exhibits Program is working closely with scientists and other EO staff to develop a teacher’s guide to the Climate Discovery exhibit for which several units have been drafted and will be revised for publication in 2005 with support from Friends of UCAR.

Art Exhibits. The community art program is facilitating the displays of 18 exhibitions a year in the two galleries of the NCAR cafeteria. In December 2003, a highly successful special exhibition of artwork by staff artists or their family members was presented. In the month of April 2004, special invitational murals by Boulder Valley School District and the St Vrain Valley School District K-12 classes graced the walls of the Mesa Lab as a part of NCAR’s Wild Earth Day activities.

Education and Tour Program

Over the past year, visitors have returned to the beautifully refurbished Mesa Lab, which required a 6-month closure and interruption of public programs in the previous year. The estimated 80,000 people who visited the Mesa Lab, included approximately 12,000 students and 3,000 adults who were scheduled for tours, and several thousand more took advantage of the new audiotour program.

Module Development. EO staff have implemented seven new interactive/multimedia modules which PVP staff now use to format the visits of K-12 school groups. These resources augment the range of students’ inquiry-based classroom learning experiences and are compatible with state and national science education content standards. Modules developed in 2004 include:

Resource Dissemination. Beyond dissemination within UCAR and on the web, the new educational units are now regularly presented at local ( University of Colorado Water Festival), state (Colorado Science Convention), and national (National Science Teachers Association) teachers’ conferences. A workshop entitled Climate Change - In a New Light was presented to middle-school educators at the National Science Teachers Association conference in Atlanta. Water and Weather was presented at the 2004 CU Water Festival, which hosts 700 fifth-grade students. What’s the Difference? Weather and Climate will be presented in early October as a Saturday workshop for Northern Colorado Jr. Girl Scouts with collaboration of NCAR female scientists and post-docs. Additional educational involvements of PVP staff include attendance and presentations at high school career fairs, science fairs, and school community assemblies. Staff also look forward to training in Unidata’s IDV and Gempack programs, as well as GIS, and subsequent inclusion of such resources in future modules. Global Imagination, Inc.’s “Magic Planet,” a large sphere that projects Earth and space science visualizations purchased in 2004 with funds from Friends of UCAR now helps PVP staff visually convey Earth system science to the general public. In addition, staff frequently share NCAR visualizations within the SCD Visualization Laboratory and work with SCD staff to ensure scientifically accurate content for these presentations which must be adapted for audiences from difference ages, interests, and backgrounds.

Staff Development. The professional development and networking of PVP staff continues to be a priority. One was selected as a participant in an 18-month professional development program for museum-based educators, which is offered by the NSF-funded Center for Informal Learning (CILS). Emphasis is on the policies, research, and learning theories driving science education reform, while creating a community of educators that cross-institutional lines, including museums, school districts, universities, and policy communities. Our other staff educator has completed a professional credentialing program for NCAR science content with the National Association for Interpretation.

Audiotour. Summer 2004 represents the first-year anniversary of the Mesa Lab audiotour, which exists in two versions, one for adults, and one for children. This significant lobby resource was made possible by funding from the National Science Foundation’s Geoscience Education Program and from Friends of UCAR, which contributed funds for the audiotour’s Spanish translations. Between July 2003 and September 2004, nearly 2700 individuals and families (1,967 adults and 695 children) chose this as their primary way to learn about UCAR and to experience the exhibits. The audiotour narrations have also provided us with the opportunity to address a long-observed need of many visitors for whom English proficiency is limited. The scripts of the audiotour have been adapted as paper translations for use by visitors who may prefer Spanish, German, Italian, French, Chinese, or Japanese wording to English. EO staff continue to seek new ways to extend atmospheric science education to area children who comprise a significant Spanish-speaking population. We are currently in the process of carrying out a series of after school workshops in which bilingual educators learn how to disseminate the availability of the audiotour’s Spanish translations to families in their schools, as well as the Spanish translation of the “Windows to the Universe” website in classroom use.

Community Outreach. Unique PVP activities that welcome adults with both science and nonscience backgrounds have continued. Examples include arranging a several-day visit for staff from SENAMHI, Peru’s National Meteorological and Hydrological Service; helping a legislative aide to the French National Assembly establish a contact with UCAR staff; creating a two-day visit for University of Arizona graduate students to interact with NCAR scientists; and running the annual Rocky Mountain Weather and Climate Workshop with NOAA and Colorado State University’s Colorado Climate Center staff for volunteer weather observers.

Spanish bi-lingual science education resources available through UCAR were highlighted in September in an after-school workshop for bilingual educators. A model for future workshops, it focused on sharing information about the recently developed and NSF-supported audiotour, as well as the Spanish translation of the “Windows to the Universe” website (see below). The workshops will provide opportunities for educators to tour the exhibit and experience the audiotour, obtain training about on-line resources and activities available through the Windows to the Universe project, and gain information about related programs available through UCAR.

Web-based Resources

NCAR EO Web Site

Close collaboration of UCAR-EO with the institution-wide WORD committee has resulted in smooth integration of the new NCAR/UCAR umbrella web site with the NCAR Education and Outreach web site (www.ucar.edu/eo), which has been developed by UCAR-EO staff with support from the NCAR Strategic Initiative. Visitors can now easily navigate to educational resources for public visitors, children, K-12 teachers, science enthusiasts, and undergraduate to graduate students by clicking on a conspicuous Education “tab” on the umbrella site’s home page. New pages in the Kids Crossing section of the NCAR EO web site entitled “Water Water Everywhere” and “Living in the Greenhouse” offer children in upper elementary through middle school grades with a wealth of whimsical, didactic explanations and diagrams about the water cycle, climate, and climate change. “Watch Out for Dangerous Weather!” provides young visitors with stories about dramatic weather events and information about the causes of thunderstorms, tornadoes, blizzards, and hurricanes. Resources for those seeking work and educational opportunities in the atmospheric and related sciences will soon be updated and unveiled. Members of the public who wish to know more about tours and exhibits can easily access information they need for planning a visit and scheduling a guided or audiotour at the Mesa Lab.

Windows to the Universe

The home page for Windows to the Universe Web (W2U) site (www.windows.ucar.edu) has been redesigned in 2004 to facilitate more efficient navigation to its immense content areas spanning the Earth and space science, with arts and humanities connections, through the use of new color schemes, page headers, and navigation toolbar. One half of the web site including information about all of the planets has been translated into Spanish, and user logs indicate that ~20 percent of site traffic (roughly 7,200 visitors per day) is going to Spanish pages. Outreach to the local Spanish speaking community and bilingual educators has produced excitement about this new resource. We are now developing plans to collaborate with educators to support them in their use of W2U in formal and informal settings. NCAR SI funding has enabled a major push to develop and expand a section of the website on Climate and Global Change. Content about space weather has been consolidated, revised, and expanded, especially with a focus on a new audience, students in undergraduate survey courses. An exciting new interface has been developed to allow scientists at NCAR and around the world to collaborate with W2U staff on the development of new content. During the 2004 calendar year, we anticipate serving ~6 million users from around the world with our educational resources through W2U.