The American Meteorological Society's (AMS) DataStreme distance-learning model is the basis for two highly successful teacher enhancement courses: DataStreme Atmosphere and DataStreme Water in the Earth System (WES), with a third, DataStreme Ocean having just been piloted. DataStreme Atmosphere, initiated with National Science Foundation (NSF) support as the DataStreme Project in 1995, offers an innovative system of delivering fundamental understandings about weather via a semester-long distance-learning course through Local Implementation Teams (LITs), partially utilizing the Internet. DataStreme WES, also supported by the NSF, began in 1999 and offers fundamental understandings about the global water cycle. The DataStreme Ocean course, developed with National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) support, covers the basics of oceanography.

AMS DataStreme distance-learning courses are each based on a textbook and study guide. The innovative study guide contains the first half of twenty-four benchmark investigations following the topics of the text, with the second half of each investigation utilizing near-realtime environmental data from the Internet, is delivered via each AMS course’s homepage. Participants meet in small groups led by LITs at the beginning, middle, and end of the course. The three-member LITs are typically headed by a master precollege teacher, an AMS Education Resource Agent, along with a scientist, and another educator. Following the course, the participating teachers agree to be science teacher resource persons in their local schools and districts. A strong component of the course success is mentoring; a LIT member communicates with each teacher participant weekly regarding his/her progress in mastering the course material and adaptations of it to the classroom.

In seven years, the DataStreme Atmosphere course has trained over 6400 teachers from practically every state and several other countries. DataStreme WES has trained over 1400 teachers in its four years of implementation. The DataStreme Ocean pilot was just completed by 26 members of LITs who are involved in final revisions prior to a national implementation. DataStreme courses are made possible by the collegial partnership among the AMS, NOAA, the State University of New York (SUNY) College at Brockport, and hundreds of precollege teacher resource agents, college faculty members, and NOAA and other scientists who serve on DataStreme LITs.

Support for DataStreme Water in the Earth System is provided by NSF while DataStreme Atmosphere and DataStreme Ocean are supported by the Cooperative Program for Earth System Education (CPESE), a partnership the AMS, NOAA, SUNY College at Brockport, and the U.S. Naval Meteorological and Oceanographic Command.