Teaching Undergraduates Scientific Writing: VU Perspective

Teaching undergraduates to write is not anything new, however, it has seemed to become a taller task over the past few years. Anecdotal evidence suggests that students arriving at many colleges and universities appear to lack quality writing skills, no matter whom they are writing for or what they are writing about. As a result, over the past three years a writing initiative has been implemented at Valparaiso University to improve students' ability to write both across and within disciplines. Within the meteorology program at Valparaiso University we have a long history of incorporating scientific writing within disciplinary courses, however, in an attempt to better serve students in need of extra help to improve their writing skills a one-credit scientific course has been developed. This presentation will cover when, where, and how writing is incorporated into the meteorology curriculum and early feedback on the use of the new one-credit writing course.