Weather science short courses for 'talented and gifted' school students in England

In 2002 the government-funded National Academy for Gifted and Talented Youth (NAGTY) was established and sited at the University of Warwick in the English Midlands. Its prime task is to provide and promote challenging education for school students from 11 to 19 years of age who are assessed as being in, or having the potential of being in, the top 5% of the national ability range.

NAGTY's website (www.nagty.ac.uk) illustrates the wide range of activities and resources available in its subdivisions of the Expertise Centre,the Student Academy, the Professional Academy and the Research Centre. Student membership is normally through school nomination, although individual applications are permitted.

The Academy offers a wide variety of residential and non-residential programmes for student members plus a wealth of teacher/presenter-related ideas/resources on their website.

This presentation summarises experiences in offering two one-day courses on aspects of the weather for NAGTY and another private organisation, and plans for a residential weekend programme.

The range of activities discussed include the use of the web to produce a local forecast, the use of instrumental and visual observations to log hourly changes and some mathematics applied to the very local and the global atmosphere. The use of a quiz - including prizes - will be outlined, as will the impact of students' post-course assessments on the modification of activities.