Efforts are underway in the department of Chemistry and Environmental Sciences, University of Texas at Brownsville and Texas Southmost College (UTB/TSC) to offer a new freshman-level course in meteorology during the calendar year 2005. UTB/TSC, located in Brownsville, Texas approximately 300 yards from the USA/Mexico border, is primarily a Hispanic serving undergraduate institution with a student enrollment nearing 11,000 in Spring, 2004. Brownsville area, as suggested by the historic weather data, is either brushed or hit by severe weather tropical systems approximately once every 5 years and is directly hit by hurricane approximately once every 16 years.

This course serves as general education science requirement and also as a core course in the academic programs currently being developed by the department. It will be offered as a web-enhanced lecture and lab course with GEOL 1347 and GEOL 1147 as course numbers. Distance education tool Blackboard will be utilized for the web enhancement. The textbook and lab manual to be implemented for the course are published by the Online Weather Studies component of American Meteorological Society (AMS). On campus resources available for the course implementation include the lecture rooms equipped with multimedia teaching tools, geology lab with internet enabled personal computers, and a mini GIS lab. Field trips to the Brownsville National Weather station, and the Brownsville Public Utilities Board (PUB) Rio Grande river station will be incorporated into the course.