Teaching Atmosphere, Ocean, and Climate Dynamics with Interactive Demonstrations
Conveners
Jordyn E Moscoso, University of California-Santa Cruz
Jonathan Aurnou, University of California-Los Angeles
Alex Gonzalez, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
Kaylie Cohanim, Princeton University
Rodrigo Rodakoviski, University of California-Los Angeles
Rachel Tripoli, University of California-Los Angeles
william church, CRCS
Weather, ocean, and climate processes are often notoriously difficult for students and educators to conceptualize. In this three-day workshop, participants will gain knowledge using simple experiments to create vivid table-top models of these geophysical systems with our Do-It-Yourself dynamics (DIYnamics) kits. We will focus on material to effectively teach Coriolis accelerations and energy flow through the earth system. At the end of our workshop, each participant will get to take home the DIYnamics kit that they built.
Overview
Weather, ocean, and climate processes are often notoriously challenging for students and educators to conceptualize.Because planetary scale motions are far removed from our daily experiences, we rarely encounter and connect with their underlying dynamics. We have designed this workshop to bridge this gap by creating scaled down atmospheres and oceans in table-top experiments that correctly model the essential processes.
In this three-day workshop, participants will gain experience using our Do-It-Yourself dynamics (DIYnamics) kits to conduct simple experiments that vividly simulate the climate system. You will learn and observe how wintertime storms and atmospheric rivers develop, sea ice and ice sheets melt, and how oceanic garbage patches form. The "see one, do one, teach one" pedagogical method will be implemented through a mixture of brief presentations, hands-on demonstrations, interactive discussions, and SLIME* events. We will focus on providing effective tools for teaching Coriolis accelerations and energy flow through the earth system while inviting participants to think about, discuss, and propose ideas for teaching large scale climate and weather systems. At workshop's end, each participant will get to take home the DIYnamics kit that they built. *SLIME = Spontaneous Laboratory IMpromptu Events
Target Audience
We invite science instructors from the middle school through graduate university levels. At the middle and high school level, these demonstrations are great for earth and environmental science, physical science, and physics courses. At the undergraduate and graduate levels, our demonstrations make tangible some of the most difficult concepts in courses on weather, climate, oceanography, planetary science, and fluid dynamics. Each participant will be given a complete DIYnamics kits to subsequently use in their own teaching, enabling their use regardless of the availability of resources/funds at their home institution.
Goals
- Bridge the gap between the planetary and human scales to understand the fundamental processes that control climate
- Take home new student centered tools to provide a throughline connecting core climate concepts from physics to life sciences
- Engage with open source online data, DIYnamics hardware, and conceptual tools
- Create and connect with a community of diverse instructors to sustain your teaching and incorporate workshop materials beyond EER 2023
Format
This workshop will include a mixture of brief presentations, exploration of online data tools, hands-on experiments, live demonstrations, interactive discussions, and rather liberating free-form SLIME* events (ponchos optional).