Classroom virtual lab experiments as teaching tools for explaining how we understand planetary processes

This presentation will report on a classroom pilot study in which we teamed with school teachers in four middle school classes to develop and deploy course modules that connect the real-world to virtual forms of laboratory experiments.The broad goal is to help students realize that seemingly complex Earth system processes can be connected to basic properties of the planet and that this can be illustrated through idealized experiment. Specifically the presentation will describe virtual modules based on on-demand cloud computing technologies that allow students to test the notion that pole equator gradients in radiative forcing together with rotation can explain characteristic patterns of flow in the atmosphere. The module developed aligns with new Massachusetts science standard requirements regarding understanding of weather and climate processes. These new standards emphasize an appreciation of differential solar heating and a qualitative understanding of the significance of rotation. In our preliminary classroom pilot studies we employed pre and post evaluation tests to establish that the modules had increased student knowledge of phenomenology and terms. We will describe the results of these tests as well as results from anecdotal measures of student response. This pilot study suggests that one way to help make Earth science concepts more tractable to a wider audience is through virtual experiments that distill phenomena down, but still retain enough detail that students can see the connection to the real world. Modern computer technology and developments in research models appear to provide an opportunity for more work in this area. We will describe some follow-up possibilities that we envisage.