This summer, Kansas Workshop was my first time to learn meteorology besides my physics background. I have my expectations for the workshop. Students also have their expectations when they register for a weather study course. In reality, they may wonder
1. Do I read weather forecast on TV/Internet better after this course?
2. Do I know better when I see clouds after this course?
3. Will I be able to talk about weather with more depth after this course?
4. When the hurricane/monsoon (Hobbs, New Mexico, Desert/continental climate) season starts, do I know what is going to happen?
5. Do I understand local climate better after this course?
If an algebra course spends too much time in long/synthetic division between polynomials, then the course loses its purpose, i.e. to solve real life problems mathematically. The goal of this course – students will have positive answers to the above questions. Therefore, besides lecture and other in/out of classroom activities, I will ask students to do
1. Presentation on TV weather forecasts and check their accuracies. Discussion after each presentation.
2. Research on local area weather history.
3. Forecast local weather and climate based on present data.
4. Field trips to nearby weather station and TV weather center.
WebCT environment will be used as supplement for the course. Pre- and post- assessments will be completed for this course for future improvement.
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