Implementing the Online Weather Studies into a research base learning community

As a new member of the Diversity Project I am interested in developing the online component of the Online Weather Studies to its fullest capacity. There is a growing interest in the topics of climatology and meteorology in the scientific community in Puerto Rico. Also several initiatives have been conducted nationwide to include High School teachers and students by deploying weather sensors at schools. A lack of a solid online learning environment has been identified as one of the major drawbacks in the implementation of collaborative efforts and long term initiatives. A need for a basic background in meteorology has been targeted as a major flaw in the knowledge base of the interested parties. The interested parties so far are university students, school teachers, government officials and scientific researchers, mostly those interested in atmospheric sciences. The proposed work is based on the use of the Online Weather Studies as a learning environment for those interested in the field of meteorology. The analyses of real data is seen as a major component of the effort. The learning community will be developed using Blackboard, as a course management tool during the August-December 2005 semester. An official course will be implemented during the January-May 2006 semester. Main findings and strategies will be presented.