Physics and Pre-Engineering Department, Dillard University,

2601 Gentilly Blvd, New Orleans, LA 70122

ABSTRACT

The Physics and Pre-Engineering Department at Dillard University participated in the National Science Foundation sponsored American Meteorological Society's (AMS) Online Ocean Studies Diversity Program during the summer of 2007 and participated on OWS during the Spring of 2005 and will participate in On line Ocean study during the Spring of 2008. Dillard University is a Historically Black University (HBCU) with a student population comprised of approximately 98% African Americans and 87% female. The course will be taught through a combination of classroom lectures and online study using real-time ocean data. This course format replaces the more traditional lecture-only format. The classroom component consists of presenting the general physical principles associated with meteorology. This course serves as a technical elective for non-science majors and a degree requirement for Sciences majors and education majors who elect to join the Geosciences Alliance to Enhance Minority Participation program (GAMEP) program at LSU and Transforming Earth Science System through Education the TESSE (TESSE) program. The GAMEP and TESSE programs seeks to provide opportunities for under-represented ethnic minorities to become more aware of the role and importance of geosciences in society and the rewards and challenges of a career in the science in addition to TESSE program which provides Excellence in Earth science education as it is important to national priority because of the critical role of Earth science in energy resource and environmental issues. Earth science in our schools, however, faces several fundamental challenges as it looks to meet the needs of our future generations. Foremost, Earth science needs to be taught as a system, rather than a collection of loosely related sub-disciplines. The two programs GAMEP and TESSE will utilize the online ocean studies as part of the programs and this will will be presented in this paper.