Students will analyze data of tornadoes throughout the United States. They will create a bar graph of the number of tornadoes for the top ten states in the country and then calculate the median and the mode of the data.
Homer, Alaska, has been taking action to reduce climate change for almost a decade. As the ten-year anniversary of their first plan looms on the horizon, the community is engaging in conversations about adaptation.
This course introduces students to the technique of instrumental neutron activation analysis. This is a non-destructive analytical technique for the determination of elemental abundances at very low levels in a wide variety of samples, geological to biological.
This activity teaches students weather terminology, how to interpret weather data, and make a weather prediction based on that data.
As an on-going project, students note the position of the sun by mapping a shadow on the classroom floor. They learn about the earth's tilt and the effect of the sun's light on our seasons.
This course describes the large-scale circulation systems of the tropical atmosphere and analyses the dynamics of such systems. Topics include: Radiative-convective equilibrium; the Hadley and walker circulation; monsoons; tropical boundary layers; theory of the response of the tropical atmosphere to localized sea-surface temperature anomalies; intraseasonal oscillations; equatorial waves; El Nio/Southern Oscillation; easterly waves; and tropical cyclones.
Students learn about tsunamis, discovering what causes them and what makes them so dangerous. They learn that engineers design detection and warning equipment, as well as structures that that can survive the strong wave forces. In a hands-on activity, students use a table-top-sized tsunami generator to observe the formation and devastation of a tsunami. They see how a tsunami moves across the ocean and what happens when it reaches a coastline. They make villages of model houses to test how different material types are impacted by the huge waves.
This course presents the phenomena, theory, and modeling of turbulence in the Earth's oceans and atmosphere. The scope ranges from the fine structure to planetary scale motions. The regimes of turbulence include homogeneous flows in two and three dimensions, geostrophic motions, shear flows, convection, boundary layers, stably stratified flows, and internal waves.
This course presents the phenomena, theory, and modeling of turbulence in the Earth's oceans and atmosphere. The scope ranges from centimeter to planetary scale motions. The regimes of turbulence include homogeneous isotropic three dimensional turbulence, convection, quasi-geotropic turbulence, shallow water turbulence, baroclinic turbulence, macro turbulence in the ocean and atmosphere.
In this activity, students will act as members of the UN Climate Council and working within teams, identify and address the major factors of climate change. Students are instructed to identify three major factors of climate change through research. They then have to identify ways to help reduce the impact these factors have on climate change keeping in mind social, economic, and environmental impacts of those solutions. They will use the C-Learn model to see if the solutions they develop will reduce the impact on climate change as they predicted.
Property owners in New Jersey can check their vulnerability to sea level rise and storm surge using an interactive mapping toolthe NJ Flood Mapper. Here's how one restaurant owner used results from the tool in his long-term planning.
This course is an introduction to basic ideas of geophysical wave motion in rotating, stratified, and rotating-stratified fluids. Subject begins with general wave concepts of phase and group velocity. It also covers the dynamics and kinematics of gravity waves with a focus on dispersion, energy flux, initial value problems, etc. Also addressed are subject foundation used to study internal and inertial waves, Kelvin, Poincare, and Rossby waves in homogeneous and stratified fluids. Laplace tidal equations are applied to equatorial waves. Other topics include: resonant interactions, potential vorticity, wave-mean flow interactions, and instability.
Students discuss the characteristics of storms, including the relationship of weather fronts and storms. Using everyday materials, they develop models of basic lightning detection systems (similar to a Benjamin Franklin design) and analyze their models to determine their effectiveness as community storm warning systems.
Students are introduced to the basics of the Earth's weather. Concepts include fundamental causes of common weather phenomena such as temperature changes, wind, clouds, rain and snow. The different factors that affect the weather and the instruments that measure weather data are also addressed.
Students begin this lesson by considering how weather forecasting plays an important part in their daily lives. They learn about the history of weather forecasting -- from old weather proverbs to modern forecasting equipment and how improvements in weather technology have saved lives by providing advance warning of natural disasters.
Students are introduced to some essential meteorology concepts so they more fully understand the impact of meteorological activity on air pollution control and prevention. First, they develop an understanding of the magnitude and importance of air pressure. Next, they build a simple aneroid barometer to understand how air pressure information is related to weather prediction. Then, students explore the concept of relative humidity and its connection to weather prediction. Finally, students learn about air convection currents and temperature inversions. In an associated literacy activity, students learn how scientific terms are formed using Latin and Greek roots, prefixes and suffixes, and are introduced to the role played by metaphor in language development. Note: Some of these activities can be conducted simultaneously with the air quality activity (What Color Is Your Air Today?) of Air Pollution unit, Lesson 1.
In this unit, students learn the basics about weather and the atmosphere. They investigate materials engineering as it applies to weather and the choices available to us for clothing to counteract the effects of weather. Students have the opportunity to design and analyze combinations of materials for use in specific weather conditions. In the next lesson, students also are introduced to air masses and weather forecasting instrumentation and how engineers work to improve these instruments for atmospheric measurements on Earth and in space. Then, students learn the distinguishing features of the four main types of weather fronts that accompany high and low pressure air masses and how those fronts are depicted on a weather map. During this specific lesson, students learn different ways that engineers help with storm prediction, analysis and protection. In the final lesson, students consider how weather forecasting plays an important part in their daily lives by learning about the history of weather forecasting and how improvements in weather technology have saved lives by providing advance warning of natural disasters.
" Course 12.307 is an undergraduate course intended to illustrate, by means of 'hands on' projects, the basic dynamical and physical principles that govern the general circulation of the atmosphere and ocean and the day to day sequence of weather events.ĺĘ The course parallels the content of the new undergraduate textbook Atmosphere, Ocean and Climate Dynamics by John Marshall and R. Alan Plumb."
This activity is a field investigation where students gather weather cycle data on seasons and climate. They will graph their observations, share with others and connect weather and seasons together.
Students develop awareness and understanding of the daily air quality using the Air Quality Index (AQI) listed in the newspaper. They explore what engineers can do to help reduce poor air quality.