18th Symposium on Education

P1.4

DATASTREME COURSES - AN AMS/NOAA PARTNERSHIP FOR PRE-COLLEGE TEACHER TRAINING

James A. Brey, Univ. of Wisconsin Fox Valley, Menasha, WI; and R. S. Weinbeck, J. M. Moran, I. W. Geer, E. J. Hopkins, E. W. Mills, D. R. Smith, and B. A. Blair

The American Meteorological Society's DataStreme Project has over a decade of experience in precollege teacher enhancement. The AMS' Education Program has developed three courses, DataStreme Atmosphere, DataStreme Ocean and DataStreme Water in the Earth System (WES). These courses have assisted almost 15,000 teachers to develop Earth system science competency through the use of telecommunicated Earth system information, in large part from NOAA websites. AMS-trained teachers, in turn, have provided learning experiences for colleagues and their students based on this Internet data and the understandings they have gained from the courses. This approach has been shown to be both exciting and highly motivational for students.

DataStreme Atmosphere, which began as the DataStreme Project in 1995, has served as the prototype for all AMS' DataStreme courses. DataStreme courses are offered locally by the Local Implementation Team (LIT), typically three members who are master teachers or scientists, including many NOAA personnel. They serve as mentors to the teachers whom they recruit. Course content is provided by a custom text and investigations coordinated by AMS' DataStreme Central. The text and the initial portions of investigations are provided to the participants at the beginning of the semester while weekly investigation completions based on current environmental data are delivered via the course websites. The LIT conducts several in-person meetings and provides weekly mentoring as participants work toward content mastery.

Poster Session 1, Educational Initiatives Poster Session
Monday, 12 January 2009, 2:30 PM-4:00 PM, Hall 5

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