Understanding Space Weather and the Physics Behind It

A new textbook on space weather, Understanding Space Weather and the Physics Behind It, aimed at upper-level undergraduates and beginning graduate students, contains numerous examples of basic physics applications in space weather. We will highlight a few of the examples from the text. In addition, new material is being developed to support the many references to NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC) graphics and scales. Our intent is to provide background and improved understanding of the underpinnings of the operational images. In this presentation we provide a set of questions, tools, and exercises that guide inquiry into the observations and proxies behind some of elements on SWPC's home page. Our materials include observation sequences for the types of space weather disturbances discussed in SWPC's Report of Solar and Geophysical Activity and the NOAA Space Weather Scales. Our instructional materials are in standard electronic document formats and in "dashboard" format supported by tools from the Integrated Space Weather Analysis platform at NASA's Community Coordinated Modeling Center.