HR: 0800h
AN: ED31D-1230    [Abstracts]
TI: Schools of the Pacific Rainfall Climate Experiment: The Benefits and Challenges of Student Participation in Scientific Research Programs
AU: * Morrissey, M L
EM: mmorriss@ou.edu
AF: University of Oklahoma, School of Meteorology Environmental Verification and Analysis Center 3200 Marshall Ave., Suite 150, Norman, OK 73072 United States
AU: Postawko, S
EM: spostawk@ou.edu
AF: University of Oklahoma, School of Meteorology Environmental Verification and Analysis Center 3200 Marshall Ave., Suite 150, Norman, OK 73072 United States
AB: The Schools of the Pacific Rainfall Climate Experiment (SPaRCE) is a cooperative field project involving elementary, middle school, high school, college and trade school students, along with personnel from Pacific Island meteorological services, in expanding and enhancing the climate observation network across the Pacific Basin. The goals of the program are to: 1. foster interest and increase awareness among students, teachers, and local island meteorologists as to the importance of cooperation between nations in investigating potential climate change, 2. to educate students and teachers as to the importance of rainfall (particularly in the Pacific region) to climate studies, 3. to increase the observations of climate variable across the Pacific, and to incorporate the collected observations into a comprehensive Pacific database to be used for climate research purposes 4. to make a major contribution to the global climate research effort by collecting and analyzing Pacific climate data, 5. and to encourage scientific and cultural exchange. The SPaRCE program has been working with students, teachers, and meteorological service personnel on various Pacific islands and atolls since 1991. Much of the data collected has been incorporated into the Comprehensive Pacific Rainfall Database and has been used as verification data for several satellite rainfall studies. In addition, several students who got involved in the SPaRCE program at their school have gone on to work at their local meteorological service upon graduation. Significant advances in the technological capabilities in most of the Pacific island countries have taken place over the years. These advances have been both a help and a hindrance in getting schools involved in making accurate, reliable, long-term climate observations and getting students excited about analyzing these data. One challenge that has remained fairly constant over the years is that of teacher turn-over in these developing island nations.
UR: http://sparce.evac.ou.edu
DE: 0805 Elementary and secondary education
DE: 0810 Post-secondary education
DE: 0815 Informal education
DE: 0855 Diversity
SC: Education and Human Resources [ED]
MN: Fall Meeting 2005