In the Summer of 2000, the Physics and Earth Sciences Department at Central Connecticut State University offered an in-service course for certified Earth Science teachers entitled “Natural Disasters.” The course was conducted over a nine-day period, meeting each day for six hours. The class studied three different large scale families of natural disasters—geological disasters, meteorological disasters and planetary disasters. Within the units, each day’s class consisted of lecture material, multimedia presentations and laboratory exercises. The teacher-students were required to submit detailed lesson plans, by the middle of the Fall, 2000 semester, for a curriculum in one of the three units in order to receive a final grade.

This presentation will show how Project DataStreme exercises were modified and incorporated into the meteorology unit of the course. Student reaction to the materials was uniformly positive, and resulted in heightened interest in the DataStreme course. In fact, two of the teacher-students in the Natural Disasters course enrolled in the Project DataStreme course for the subsequent Fall, 2000 semester. Some examples of the students’ submitted lesson plans will be presented.