Rob Kuhlman
Science
Montgomery County Community College
101 College Dr.
Pottstown, PA 19464
610.718.1889
rkuhlman@mc3.edu

I hope I'm in the right mode for submitting info for the profile -- I got a bit lost...

I've been teaching at MCCC for 30+ years, and two years ago I moved from our main campus to our branch campus to try to get geoscience started out there. (Well, that and to get a new house with a garden and easy biking distance to work.)

I've been teaching entry-level geology pretty much my whole time at MCCC -- Physical, Historical, Environmental, Earth Science, and a 2-week long summer field course.

In the summer of 2005 I participated in the SERC Course Design online workshop, and it was something of an epiphany experience for me. Since then, I've been doing much more active learning-type instruction, much less traditional lecture/lab format. With our classes maxed at 25, it's pretty easy to do. I also began utilizing computer-mediated instruction, so nearly everything which my students do is delivered via web pages which I create, and they go to online data resources to obtain and then analyze collaboratively what they're supposed to be learning that day.

One of the activities which I have my Earth Science students do is a 2-day (roughly 3 hour) activity on testing the IPCC prediction of 'increased storminess'. I'll be sharing this in more detail with you on Tuesday afternoon. And I'd be delighted to discover additional resources which I could add or substitute in this particular activity.

What I'd like to learn a bit more about in this workshop is to what extent an increase in sea surface temp due to global warming might contribute to changes in behavior of annual- and decadal-scale oscillations...and the extent to which these changes might be a contributor to increased tropical cyclone intensity. Also -- is the work being done in the Atlantic universal? Do we see the same trends such as Tom spoke about today in the Pacific and Indian oceans as well?

Activity: Confirmation of the IPCC Prediction re: Increased Storminess