The American Meteorological Society (AMS) is developing and nationally pilot-testing a one-semester, introductory college-level, online distance-learning course in the fundamentals of atmospheric science where students study weather as it happens. The course addresses the need for innovative and cost-effective science education opportunities for an increasingly diverse and non-traditional student population, primarily in two- and four-year institutions. Developed with funding from the National Science Foundation, it will be available to colleges and universities as a turn-key package with electronic and printed components.
The course contains learning activities with components written to current meteorological data and delivered via the Internet. The experience of real-time study enables students to negotiate scientific understanding of the atmosphere and its processes while actually tracking the ways the atmospheric system behaves.
A course Reader, Student Study Guide, and Instructor’s Resource Manual are being developed. On-line delivery of current meteorological data and related learning materials via an Internet Homepage will be coordinated with the Reader and Student Study Guide contents. The AMS project staff will produce the on-line component of the course and be available to local instructors for assistance. The course will be offered in fall and spring semesters, starting in Fall 1999.
It is expected that undergraduate institutions will offer the course through their offices of continuing education/outreach or academic departments. Once implemented, the course is expected to continue indefinitely on a self-sustaining basis