“Experiencing” Climate Change for Gen-Ed Students: Thoughts and

“Experiencing” Climate Change for Gen-Ed Students: Thoughts and Experiences on Active Learning Todd D. Ellis Assistant Professor of Meteorology SUNY College at Oneonta SERC Hurricanes and Climate Change - 21 October 2008

Confucius Says I hear and I forget I see and I remember I do and I understand Current efforts in visualization Observations and Climate - What’s in your data? Climate comparisons - Putting dream vacations to work Post-mortem Analyses - How did the pieces fit? Thoughts on the future Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics - How to interpret the climate change data Spinning Around - Experiments on the Small Scale Todd D. Ellis Hurricane and Climate Change Workshop 21 October 2008

There’s more to data than just numbers Students are often familiar with the data, but not always with the measurements Experiment #1 - Measuring humidity different ways Sling psychrometry is really fun, Kestrels are cool How might changing your Todd D. Ellis observation method affect climate records? Students at Paragon Senior Secondary School in Mohali, Punjab, India taking Cloud Observations Hurricane and Climate Change Workshop 21 October 2008

Heat Islands Experiment #2 - Urban Heat Island Measurements Class project for upperclassmen/intro grad students A sketch of a heat islandepa.gov Designing your own experiment (and then watching it fail) is a good way to learn about the effects of microclimates Landsat Image of Atlanta, NASA Scientific Visualization GA Studio Todd D. Ellis Hurricane and Climate Change Workshop 21 October 2008

Climate Comparisons Intro to Meteorology (this semester) Asking Students to Compare Climates between the local station and a world city of their choice A Work in Progress - the results are due this week Students have been going out and getting additional data Todd D. Ellis They are thinking about unique ways to portray the data, and are October really going all out 21 2008 Hurricane and Climate Change Workshop

Post-Mortem Analysis One of the most instructive things I’ve found in my classes is not the forecast, but the postmortem analysis As far as climate connections, I think it can then set the stage for which changes are important Todd D. Ellis Hurricane and Climate Change Workshop 21 October 2008

Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics We are developing a new class devoted to climate change science, policy debates, and mitigation proposals Students should know how to understand the emerging studies on the multitude of statistics at play There is hope - students have shown that they know how to dig in with a little guidance Todd D. Ellis Hurricane and Climate Change Workshop 21 October 2008

Spinning Around We have a department “Weather in a Tank” unit that we use currently for in class demos with an eye for independent study A thought - would we be able to simulate the theoretical shutdown of the thermohaline circulation? would the ocean freeze and wolves run free in the classroom? Todd D. Ellis Hurricane and Climate Change Workshop 21 October 2008

http://www-paoc.mit.edu /labguide/ Not only demonstrating the thermohaline circulation, but asking students to explore what would happen if the density difference Todd D. Ellis Hurricane and Climate Change Workshop 21 October 2008

Conclusions When students “do”, the questions they ask are enlightening, their intuition improves, and they gain valuable work skills as well I’m hoping to share ideas on what we can visualize and “do” to teach about these connections with climate Todd D. Ellis Hurricane and Climate Change Workshop 21 October 2008