The American Meteorological Society Education Program Model for Climate Science Education

A guiding principle of the American Meteorological Society (AMS) Education Program is that public scientific literacy is most effectively achieved through systemic change in the classroom. The AMS, partnering with NOAA, NSF, NASA, the US Navy, and SUNY Brockport, aims for greater public scientific literacy through its successful distance learning programs that convey to pre-college teachers and undergraduates the fundamentals of meteorology, oceanography, and hydrology. The AMS DataStreme teacher-enhancement courses (Atmosphere, Water in the Earth System, and Ocean) have changed the way thousands of pre-college teachers teach and hundreds of thousands of students learn. Furthermore, teachers trained in this program are positioned to contribute to local and statewide curriculum reform. The AMS Online Weather Studies and Online Ocean Studies courses are providing tens of thousands of college undergraduates with engaging and highly motivational learning experiences. DataStreme courses are offered locally and feature mentoring of teacher participants whereas Online undergraduate courses are licensed by AMS for offering by colleges and universities. Integrated components of the AMS model are course website, investigations manual, and customized textbook. A portion of twice-weekly investigations is written to a near real-time situation and posted on the course website. Through its extensive experience with the DataStreme/Online programs, the AMS Education Program is now uniquely poised to assume a national leadership role in climate education by applying its proven teaching/learning model to climate education at the pre-college and undergraduate levels. The AMS model is ideally suited for delivering to teachers and students nationwide the basic understandings and enduring ideas of climate science and the role of the individual and society in climate variability and change. The AMS teaching/learning model incorporates an Earth system perspective, is problem focused, and utilizes the stream of near-real time geophysical data available on the Internet. With this model students and teachers access the resources needed to tackle scientifically authentic real-world issues (e.g., modeling and measuring climate, sea level rise and its consequences, limitations on carbon emissions, sustainability, societal resilience, lessons of the climate record) in investigations that help develop their analytical and critical thinking skills. Application of the AMS model to climatology promises to improve climate science literacy and popular perception of contemporary climate research.