“Experiencing” Climate Change for Gen-Ed Students: Thoughts and Experiences on Active Learning Todd D. Ellis Assistant Professor of Meteorology SUNY College

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

Active LearningTodd D. Ellis

Assistant Professor of MeteorologySUNY College at Oneonta

SERC Hurricanes and Climate Change - 21 October 2008

I hear and I forgetI see and I rememberI do and I understand

Confucius Says

• 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. Ellis21 October

2008Hurricane and Climate Change Workshop

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 observation method affect climate records?

Students at Paragon Senior Secondary School in Mohali, Punjab, India taking

Cloud Observations



Heat Islands• Experiment #2 - Urban

Heat Island Measurements

• Class project for upperclassmen/intro grad students

• Designing your own experiment (and then watching it fail) is a good way to learn about the effects of microclimates

epa.gov

NASA Scientific Visualization Studio

Landsat Image of Atlanta, GA

A sketch of a heat island



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

They are thinking about unique ways to portray the data, and are

really going all outTodd D. Ellis21 October


Post-Mortem Analysis• One of the most instructive things I’ve found

in my classes is not the forecast, but the post-mortem analysis

• As far as climate connections, I think it can then set the stage for which changes are important



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



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?



Not only demonstrating the

thermohaline circulation, but asking

students to explore what would happen if the density difference

decreased?

http://www-paoc.mit.edu/labguide/





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



Documents

“Experiencing” Climate Change for Gen-Ed Students: Thoughts and Experiences on Active Learning Todd D. Ellis Assistant Professor of Meteorology SUNY College