The dynamics of jets and waves in the atmosphere and Southern Ocean
NSF Awards: 1455577
The NSF-funded project entitled "The dynamics of jets and waves in the atmosphere and Southern Ocean" supported a physics teacher from a rural high school to participate in the Research Experiences for Teachers program with Center for Science and the Schools (CSATS) at Penn State. Over two summers, Mr. Besong conducted meteorology research under the direction of Dr. Sukyoung Lee and her research group. With supportive PD provided by the CSATS team, Mr. Besong was able to develop a robust curriculum plan for his students to engage in similar meteorology investigations using real-world data and computational models. He developed a series of mini-projects for students to investigate the change in reflected shortwave radiation over time and across regions of Earth. One barrier to implementing this curriculum plan with students was the lack of high-powered computers in the high school. With onboarded large datasets and computational resources, the Institute for Computational and Data Sciences at Penn State donated a small supercomputing cluster that was deployed to the high school. Using the cluster, Mr. Besong's high school students generated and interpreted the models by identifying patterns (such as in physical features), comparing regions (tropics/subtropics, midlatitudes, polar regions), and explaining the values on the resulting scatter plots and contour maps. From this common experience, the students conducted their own meteorology investigations. The high school students showcased their research findings in a poster session with faculty and graduate students from CSATS and the Department of Meteorology and Atmospheric Science at Penn State.
The dynamics of jets and waves in the atmosphere and Southern Ocean
NSF Awards: 1455577
The NSF-funded project entitled "The dynamics of jets and waves in the atmosphere and Southern Ocean" supported a physics teacher from a rural high school to participate in the Research Experiences for Teachers program with Center for Science and the Schools (CSATS) at Penn State. Over two summers, Mr. Besong conducted meteorology research under the direction of Dr. Sukyoung Lee and her research group. With supportive PD provided by the CSATS team, Mr. Besong was able to develop a robust curriculum plan for his students to engage in similar meteorology investigations using real-world data and computational models. He developed a series of mini-projects for students to investigate the change in reflected shortwave radiation over time and across regions of Earth. One barrier to implementing this curriculum plan with students was the lack of high-powered computers in the high school. With onboarded large datasets and computational resources, the Institute for Computational and Data Sciences at Penn State donated a small supercomputing cluster that was deployed to the high school. Using the cluster, Mr. Besong's high school students generated and interpreted the models by identifying patterns (such as in physical features), comparing regions (tropics/subtropics, midlatitudes, polar regions), and explaining the values on the resulting scatter plots and contour maps. From this common experience, the students conducted their own meteorology investigations. The high school students showcased their research findings in a poster session with faculty and graduate students from CSATS and the Department of Meteorology and Atmospheric Science at Penn State.
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CSATS Director/Associate Professor of Science Education
Thank you for visiting the Engaging High School Students in Meteorological Modeling video! This project is in its fourth year, and Mr. Besong's students will be presenting their technical posters to Penn State faculty again next week. The partnership between Dr. Sukyoung Lee, the Center for Science and the Schools, the Institute for Computational and Data Sciences, and Bald Eagle Area High School enabled high school physics students to engage in global meteorological modeling. We are especially interested in a discussion about providing opportunities for secondary students to conduct research using the same or similar practices of scientists - often using mathematics and computational thinking. We look forward to reading your comments.
Chanda Jefferson
Sally Crissman
Senior Science Educator
It is exciting to that yes, high school students are more capable than we may think they are given the opportunity. It seems to me that the opportunity in your case was highly dependent on individuals, a teacher, someone in the university, etc. and the result has been a boon to students Mr. Besong's students.
I have the same question as you pose, what does it take to provide such opportunities to a broader band of students? How do we encourage more Mr. Besongs to seek collaborations with local higher ed or science/tech research institutions? It's been my experience that people in higher ed and the workplace are eager to support science/tech teachers but may not know how to get involved.
I hope this discussion forum will provide more examples that others can replicate.
In the meantime, I imagine the poster presentations are benchmark experiences for these students.
Chanda Jefferson
Kathleen Hill
CSATS Director/Associate Professor of Science Education
Sally, thanks for your comment! We are now leveraging another NSF grant to offer a week-long workshop for teachers to learn from Mr. Besong's experience. We know that most teachers cannot dedicate two summers to conduct technical research, so we are designing a more abbreviated program for more teachers. We have moved all of the computational resources to the cloud (Google collab). This is the next step for us to broaden the impact of this project.
For the students, they truly enjoy the poster session, and it is a benchmark experience for many of them. Mr. Besong will have students presenting next week from his current class as well as from last year (they presented via Zoom in 2021, but want to present in person this year).
Chanda Jefferson
John Moore
Student research is a critical piece in either science education and/or STEM. I hope through venues such as this, we can meet each other and in someway move these ideas forward. I taught for 28 years at a CTE HS and was an Einstein Fellow at the NSF Directorate for Geosciences, and worked as an Educational facilitator for the AMS DataStreme Project for many years. I KNOW what you have stated in your video is factual! The Geosciences can be that heart of STEM education in the USA.
Chanda Jefferson
Kathleen Hill
CSATS Director/Associate Professor of Science Education
John, thanks for post. I can't agree with you more. My first two degrees are in the geosciences, and I worked as a hydrogeologist in industry prior to moving into education. The Geosciences can be that heart of STEM education across the country! We are currently working on submitting a proposal to the NSF GEOPAths program to expand our impact!
John Moore
You might be interested in a couple of articles that are published in the Earth Scientist, "Making the Case for GeoSTEM". Please check out our submission. Always looking for ways to collaborate! IF you are not familiar with the GLOBE Program, take a look. There are some opportunities there that would benefit your students and perhaps help spread the impact of your project.
Kathleen Hill
Jeff Remington
I recently retired after 35 years as a public classroom STEM teacher, teaching the last two years in the pandemic. I felt like I had more to offer students and teachers by sharing my classroom wisdom when it came to STEM and workforce development. I chose to work for Penn State CSATS because I felt they were leveraged the best to impact STEM education on a large scale. I felt they had the most authentic, cross-curricular, cutting edge approach to STEM education. Seeing this video validates my decision to continue my STEM career with Penn State. #WeAre! : )
Kathleen Hill
Chongo Mwila
I think you are doing a remarkable job. I am loving everything that you are posting. Keep flying the STEM flag high. #transformativeLearning# TransformingLives.
Kathleen Hill
Daniel Damelin
Senior Scientist
It sounds like there is a lot to learn from this project for how to engage students in genuine scientific exploration. When the teacher said "they get more out of this than the rest of the year" it made me think, why can't we build more of this kind of thing into how science is taught in general, or to provide more of these kinds of experiences across disciplines. It's good to hear this will expand some with the new grant. What are the main lessons learned that you think could help spread these ideas more broadly?
Kathleen Hill
CSATS Director/Associate Professor of Science Education
Mr. Besong was able to develop and implement this project with his students based on his research experience in meteorology under Dr. Lee. At CSATS, we co-create these types of projects with teachers with a focus on the science and engineering practices actually used by researchers. While science teachers have a background in the content of their discipline, they have few opportunities to learn about how scientists conduct their work. The main lessons have included: (1) Nearly all scientists code - they may not identify themselves as computer scientists, but they all code for a reason that supports their work. We try to build CS into nearly all of our teacher professional development programs. (2) Students need opportunities to work with big data - these experiences need to be scaffolded and enable them to make meaning out of the data. (3) With many school districts offering Chromebooks or iPads, students are provided a device that is a terminal to the internet and has no computational power - we have to offer computational resources to schools/precollege students to enable them to engage in science and engineering practices.
Chanda Jefferson
Daniel Damelin
Chanda Jefferson
Educator/Education Policy Fellow
Hi my name is Chanda Jefferson and I am so happy to join the conversation. The part of the video that continues circulating in my mind is, “High school students are more capable of a lot more than we think they are, in terms of STEM”. I 100% agree with this statement and we need to begin creating more programs like yours for students across the nation to help them compete in the globally STEM arena. As a former biology teacher it was my dream to collaborate with universities close to my school district. This project allows students to analyze NASA satellite data and I hope that it can be replicated across the nation. I am curious to know if this class is available for all students and what are the prerequisites for participation? I loved hearing the student narrative and success story. This is a great project!
Kathleen Hill