Bringing Antarctic atmospheric research into the middle school classroom

For the past nine years, Lodi Middle School and Antarctic Meteorological Research Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison have partnered to provide middle school students with examples of meteorological applications and careers other than broadcast meteorology. Until this year, the partnership was limited to visits to the classroom once per year to share photos of trips to Antarctica, demonstrate mock ups of equipment for the Automatic Weather Stations (AWS) program, and show some applications of these observations. This school year provided an opportunity to take the experience a step further and provide the students with a more hands-on and engaging approach to the research and data collected, while giving students practice with needed skills, and aid in improving their understanding of the importance of this polar regions..

The objectives of the project were to get students involved in collecting and interpreting real time data from several stations around the continent of Antarctica while gaining an appreciation for what scientists actually do. Students were responsible for checking a website with data for their specific station at the start of class and recording it into a log. At the end of two weeks, students averaged and analyzed data such as temperature, wind speed, wind direction, air pressure, and relative humidity. Along with the data collection, visits to the classroom several times as a co-teacher allowed both scientist and teacher to lead the classroom in learning how to read real-time and historic data from

the AWS. Reinforcing the location and operation of sensors on the automatic stations, and sharing historical facts about the location and purpose for each of the automatic stations was important to impart from the scientist to the students. Students then were responsible (in small groups) for creating a poster of the information they learned to be presented to their peers. Again modeling the collegial work of scientists sharing and reporting findings.

In order to gauge student growth and understanding; a pretest on general Antarctica information pertaining to weather, climate, and common misconceptions was given. The same test was administered at the end of the project for the teacher to form summative assessment of the effectiveness of the task. Although the data was collected for a brief time, students were able to gain understanding of conditions for their station and compare it other stations around the continent. For example, most students were able to make a connection about concepts with air pressure and relate it to the geography of Antarctica. Working with real-time data also allowed the students to compare the weather on the Antarctic continent to those conditions in Wisconsin instantaneously. At first many students were surprised to see warmer temperatures at some locations in Antarctica than that of their home state. Many believed it to be an extremely cold place with lots and lots of snow, yet the data didn't support that belief. It will be very helpful to revisit the data when the students study seasons during a later unit of study. It adds to the evidence thus aids in debunking student mis-conceptions.