88th Annual Meeting (20-24 January 2008)

Sunday, 20 January 2008
Weather Break: meteorological outreach, university recruiting, and improvement of student communication skills via a radio program
Exhibit Hall B (Ernest N. Morial Convention Center)
Jon M. Schrage, Creighton Univ., Omaha, NE
Since January of 2007, the Creighton University Department of Atmospheric Sciences has produced a daily, 5-minute radio program called Weather Break for broadcast on KINI-FM, a public affairs station in St. Francis, SD. The topics of the program range from weather and climate to environmental issues. Most episodes are written and produced by students within the Atmospheric Sciences program as part of an effort to improve the oral and written communication skills of the student population. A smaller number of episodes are created by the faculty of the department for use in classroom situations. The program is broadcast primarily to a rural audience in Nebraska and South Dakota; this audience is generally very interested in weather and climate issues. In conjunction with the broadcast of the program, Weather Break also operates a web site with current and archived episodes of the program and current operational weather charts integrated with Google Earth software. A daily electronic newsletter informs a broader audience about the topic of each day's program. This audience includes interested members of the meteorological community, prospective Atmospheric Sciences majors, and other parties.

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