Progress on SEGUE: Interactive Online Lessons for Undergraduate and Graduate Training in Meteorological Instrumentation and Measurements

The National Center for Atmospheric Research Earth Observing Laboratory, The COMET Program, and Millersville University are in the second year of a collaboration that is producing a series of 10 online learning modules on subjects related to meteorological instrumentation and measurement. These open source, interactive, multimedia educational modules are intended to enhance traditional pedagogies and supplement blended instruction on topics such as instrument types, measurement techniques, site selection, and measurement uncertainty that arise when trying to determine an atmospheric variable. The intended audience includes early graduate students and upper level undergraduates in atmospheric and related sciences courses, but the content is transferable to other disciplines where treatment of these topics is relevant.

Three modules (Foundations of Meteorological Instrumentation and Measurements, Meteorological Instrument Performance Characteristics, and Instrumentation and Measurement of Atmospheric Temperature) were released by fall 2017, one (Instrumentation and Measurement of Atmospheric Pressure) was released in spring 2018, and the latest three (Instrumentation and Measurement of Atmospheric Humidity, Instrumentation and Measurement of Precipitation, Instrumentation and Measurement of Winds) will be released in late 2018 for a total seven modules to-date. The content of these modules is of the highest caliber. They have been developed by subject matter experts (SME) who are scientists and engineers in the field of observational science and comprehensively reviewed by SMEs and select graduate students. Communicating the availability of these unique and influential educational resources with the community has been a high priority of the investigators and an important component of the broader impacts delineated to the NSF.

It is expected that this effort will fulfill the expressed need for contemporary, interactive, multimedia guided education and training modules integrating the latest instructional design and assessment tools in observational science. Thousands of undergraduate and graduate students will benefit, while course instructors will value a set of high quality lessons to use as supplements in their courses. For schools that may lack the resources to stage a field project or offer laboratory-based instrument/measurement experiences, the modules can fill the void and serve as an alternative to observational and laboratory research training.

In addition to a technical review of the COMET modules, the graduate student review team also completed a survey, developed by the project evaluator, providing their impressions of the educational value and usefulness of the module reviewed. These results along with a course-based pilot of the modules in the winter of 2018 provide robust evidence on the efficacy of using the COMET modules in the atmospheric sciences.