Initial Publication Date: March 9, 2020

Webinar: Educational modules for teaching topics in Computer Science, Earth or Environmental Science, Economics, Physics, or Physical Chemistry using polar research and data

Monday April 27, 2020

11 am Pacific | 12 pm Mountain | 1 pm Central | 2 pm Eastern


The webinar registration deadline has passed.

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Presenters

Penny Rowe (NorthWest Research Associates)

Steven Neshyba (University of Puget Sound)

Lea Fortmann (University of Puget Sound)

Webinar Description

Polar research and climate change have the potential to motivate and enhance student learning. Whether you teach courses in Computer Science, Economics, Physics, Chemistry, Earth Science, Environmental Science, or a similar discipline, you can incorporate these topics into your undergraduate classes, while accomplishing your course disciplinary learning goals.

This webinar introduces instructors to education modules created as part of the Polar ENgagement through GUided INquiry (PENGUIN) project. In each module disciplinary topics and techniques are applied to polar research or data to improve students understanding of course topics, while improving climate and computational literacy. Through the modules, students conduct inquiry, scaffolded by Excel spreadsheets or Jupyter Notebooks in Python.

Available Educational Modules

  • Image processing of Arctic Ice (Computer Science)
  • Total economic valuation of the Arctic (Economics)
  • Implications of sea level rise enhanced by polar land-ice melt on a coastal city (Economics)
  • Heat diffusion through Permafrost (Physics)
  • Tracking climate change through ice cores (Tools and Methods in Environmental Science)
  • Estimating near-surface temperature from polar infrared spectra using rovibrational transitions and blackbody radiance (Quantum Mechanics)
  • Determining the heat necessary to melt Arctic ice (Thermodynamics)

Goals

After this webinar, participants will know more about:

  1. Educational modules available or in development for bringing polar research into a variety of disciplines.
  2. Strategies for using the modules to teach a course disciplinary topic.
  3. How to access the PENGUIN teaching resources.

View Recording

Related Resources

Questions

Contact Dr. Penny Rowe (penny@nwra.com)

Project Support

PENGUIN is supported by funding from NSF Polar 1712354 and 1712282. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.