Workshop Program

(All times in Central Daylight Time.)

Need help connecting, dialing in, or posting? Find technical instructionshere.

Day 1: Monday, October 20, 2008

Introduction to the workshop and the science

8:00 - 11:00 AM Introduction to the workshop and meet others

11:00 AM - 2:00 PM The science of hurricanes and climate change

11:00 AM - 12:00 PM - Opening Synchronous Keynote: Introduction to the science and the exciting opportunities/issues
Jenni Evans, Penn State University 
Watch and listen to the Presentation (Quicktime Video 118.3MB Oct20 08)
Presentation (Zip Archive 10.4MB Oct20 08)
Summary Statement on Tropical Cyclones and Climate Change (Acrobat (PDF) 75kB Sep10 08) by the International Workshop on Tropical Cyclones-VI Participants
1:00 - 2:00 PM- Have Humans Affected Atlantic Hurricane Climate?
Tom Knutson, NOAA Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory 
Watch and listen to the Presentation (Quicktime Video 103.3MB Oct20 08)
Presentation-Windows version (Zip Archive 74.3MB Oct16 08)
Presentation-Mac version (Zip Archive 20.5MB Oct16 08)

A preview of Atlantic basin animations related to the talk:
http://www.gfdl.noaa.gov/visualizations-hurricanes 

And some of the main points to be presented.

Assignments: (please complete by the end of the day, ready for use by Tuesday AM)

  • Complete your profile page (login to your SERC account and click the link to your profile page to edit.)
  • If you have a teaching activity that you already use, fill out the activity sheet and link it to your profile page.
  • Use the discussion thread to tell us about resources that you use or that would be useful for teaching about hurricanes and climate change.

Day 2: Tuesday, October 21, 2008

Current Practices in Teaching


8:00 - 11:00 AM - Online work


11:00 AM - 12:00 PM - Synchronous presentations: Examples I
Short presentations highlighting current examples of teaching about hurricanes and climate change, and examples of methods such as teaching with visualizations, online datasets, and inquiry-based teaching.

Watch and listen to the morning session (Quicktime Video 129.1MB Oct21 08)

11:00 - 11:20 Visualization of the Coriolis Effect and its Role in Hurricane Formation (Zip Archive 54MB Oct20 08)
Danielle Schmitt, Princeton University
11:20 - 11:40 EarthLabs - Investigating Hurricanes (PowerPoint 17.8MB Oct21 08)
John McDaris, Science Education Resource Center at Carleton College

Related Website: EarthLabs: Hurricanes

11:40 - 12:00 "Experiencing" Climate Change for Gen-Ed Students: Thoughts and Experiences on Active Learning (PowerPoint 3.7MB Oct20 08)
Todd Ellis, SUNY College at Oneonta


1:00 - 2:00 PM -Synchronous presentations:Examples II
Short presentations highlighting current examples of teaching about hurricanes and climate change, and examples of methods such as teaching with visualizations, online datasets, and inquiry-based teaching.

Watch and listen to the afternoon session (Quicktime Video 125.7MB Oct21 08)

1:00 - 1:20 Testing the IPCC Prediction re: Increased Storminess (PowerPoint 2.1MB Oct17 08)
Robert Kuhlman, Montgomery County Community College

Related Activity: Confirmation of the IPCC Prediction re: Increased Storminess 

1:20 - 1:40 Using the AMS Online Course and Real-time Weather Data for Inquiry Based Learning (PowerPoint 5.8MB Oct21 08)
Julie Snow, Slippery Rock University

Related websites:
AMS Online Education (password required - will be given out during the presentation)

Aim a Hurricane

1:40 - 2:00 Critical Thinking in Interdisciplinary Science using Katrina (PowerPoint 52kB Oct21 08)
Catherine Gautier, UC Santa Barbara


Assignments: 

  • Complete the goals, context and short descriptions fields on an activity sheet. See the activities submitted so far.
  • Complete the mid-point evaluation - how is the workshop going so far?

Day 3: Wednesday, October 22, 2008

Focus on Pedagogy


11:00 AM - 12:00 PM - What Makes a Good Activity? (PowerPoint 463kB Oct22 08) 
Cathy Manduca, Science Education Resource Center, Carleton College
Watch and listen to the presentation (Quicktime Video 67.7MB Oct22 08)

Work on your own activity

Assignment: Activity ready for initial review

Day 4: Thursday, October 23, 2008

Feedback and revision

Each of you has been assigned to a review group of four or five people. Links to activities developed by the group and email addresses for the group members are provided (this was up to date at 5:00 on Wed, we will update it in the morning).

Please review the activities in your group and provide feedback to the authors by 3:00 Central time. If this timeline doesn't work for you, please negotiate a deal with the members of your group. Every author should receive a minimum of 3 reviews. If for some reason this is not going to be possible, please contact Cathy.

We would encourage your small group to function as a small discussion group that collectively seeks to help each activity author improve their activity. We think that you can do this if you share your feedback to each author by email with all of the members of your small group and respond to one anothers' ideas. We hope that you will make use of the questions from our discussion of what makes a good activity as you are providing feedback and discussing the activities.

If there are cross cutting themes that emerge that you would like to discuss with the larger group, do not hesitate to make a discussion thread. 

Assignment: Provide feedback on activities developed by members of your group.

Day 5: Friday, October 24, 2008

Wrap up and summary

12:00 Final activities are made live. Note that you can make changes to your activity after this time, but at 12 we want to make the work that you have completed public.

As you are working up to this deadline and in its aftermath, please sketch out your personal next steps following on the workshop (e.g. when will you use your activity? are there things left to finish? are there other things you plan to do based on your participation in the workshop?) Please upload this list before 5:00 today.

12:00-2:00 Look at the activities developed by the group and post at least two comments to the discussion thread 'Thoughts on Activities'. It would be nice if there were comments for everyone, so if we could collectively try to make sure this happens that would be preferable.

Also during this period, please reflect on the workshop as a whole and post any overarching comments or recommendations to the thread 'Overarching thoughts and recommendations.' Remembering that reflection is an important part of learning, this is a good moment to write down your reflections on the week for the group.

We will synthesize these overarching thoughts and recommendations into a web page between 2:00 and 3:00.

3:00-4:00 Closing phone call. This will be a real-time discussion of the synthesis document. We're not too sure how this will work, but we'd like to provide an opportunity for people to comment on the document and offer final thoughts regarding next steps.

Before Monday- please complete the workshop evaluation online form and the Action plan (Microsoft Word 60kB Oct24 08) which can be completed off line as a MS Word document and uploaded to the website We need all of these back, so expect us to chase you down if you don't turn it in before Monday.