Meteorological Education at School in Europe—Prospects and Some Projects

In the area of the European Meteorological Society (EMS) a prospect has been established in order to improve the development of common strategies to further meteorological education of the non-professional public across Europe, esp. to collect and to develop material for education at school. With a principal paper Cornford (1997) gave some background to such an action. A previous en-quiry (Wieringa 1996) indicated, that all over Europe (potential) users of weather information know much too little meteorology to appreciate or apply it. A follow-up review of the education situation across Europe (Wehry 1997) showed that the amount of meteorology education at primary and sec-ondary schools is small. Only a few countries give a practical minimum of such schooling. Some countries provide in their curricula for compulsory schooling ages below 15 years almost no educa-tion on meteorological subjects, apart from some climate facts in the geography lessons. Several countries have suffered educational setbacks in the sense that meteorology was removed from sci-ence curricula.

In order to fulfil this overall objective the project will have as practical objectives: 1. Development of a syllabus for minimal meteorological knowledge and didactical field activities in primary and secondary education across Europe, and identification of top-down and bottom-up strategies for im-plementation. 2. Surveying present use of educational tools and technology in basic meteorological education in Europe. Identify the potentialities and define strategies for using them, for primary and secondary schools, within a multinational, multilingual context. Every country has to contribute to these actions, and EMS is observing the very successful efforts of AMS as examples for European activites.

In Germany, we are going – as a quick start – to cooperate with teacher’s societies and the German Physical Society (DPG) in giving short meteorological courses in different parts of the country. In 2001 we will begin with larger efforts, e.g. summer schools (together with DPG). Some of these activities will be described more detailed.

Literature:

Cornford, S.G., 1997: A draft European Code of Conduct in Meteorology. EMS Newsletter no.3, 14-16.

Wehry, W., 1997: Education at schools and universities and information for the general public in European countries. EMS Newsletter no.3, 17-23.

Wehry, W., Editor (1998): (Deutsche Meteorologische Gesellschaft/ DMG): Wetterinforma-tion für die Öffentlichkeit – aber wie?”, p. 51-60

Wieringa, J., 1996: Is agrometeorology used well in European farm operations? EC-COST-711 Re-view, 24 pp.