HR: 1340h
AN: OS23A-1298    [Abstracts]
TI: Making Waves--When Scientists Work with Educators
AU: Spence, L
EM: lundie.spence@scseagrant.org
AF: SouthEast COSEE, SC Sea Grant 287 Meeting ST., Charleston, SC 29401 United States
AU: * Van Cooten, S
EM: Suzanne.Van.Cotten@noaa.gov
AF: NWS National Data Buoy Center, Building 1100 , Stennis Space Center, MS 39529 United States
AB: Scientists and educators working with the South East Atlantic Coastal Ocean Observing System (SEACOOS) have teamed together to develop a poster and website to introduce teachers and precollege students to ocean waves. This poster and website present examples of ocean wave data collected by moored buoys and offer explanations and graphical examples of the complex terminology scientists use to describe ocean waves and sea swells. A key component of this outreach effort is the ocean wave data collected by the moored buoys of the National Weather Service (NWS) National Data Buoy Center (NDBC) and affiliated SEACOOS partners. This data is displayed on the NDBC web site (www.ndbc.noaa.gov) after passing through a series of quality control checks. The NDBC web site displays information detailing wave height, direction, period, and steepness with additional data collected on sea swell height and period. This data is then displayed on the NDBC website on a real-time basis or users can request archived data for specific time periods and create graphs to illustrate the information. The NDBC and SEACOOS (www.seacoos.org) websites offer an expansive information source free of charge to the public. Teachers can create exciting and interactive learning activities for their students to investigate real-time wave characteristics in extreme weather events, such as hurricanes and nor'easters. However, there is an education and orientation process, which has to take place as understanding the terminology, data, and its wide range of potential applications is not intuitive to novices. To illustrate this point, the meaning of significant wave height is not readily accessible in a majority of general textbooks offering explanations of ocean waves. The technological operations, data algorithms, and deployment methods used to assemble wave information from ocean sensors on buoys, coastal platforms, and coastal radars are typical unknown to most teachers. By exposing teachers and students to in-depth explanations and examples via outreach posters and web exercises, many obstacles can be removed to bring this information into the classroom. This presentation will explore how the topic of waves was chosen, how the team developed, the pitfalls of technical jargon, the evolution of communication, and the eventual design of products. We will highlight how the accurate and interactive scientific application of the data to solving problems can provide relevant examples for student inquiry and how these student experiences in ocean sciences can increase the number of students following this as a career track. Although this is the first effort in developing SEACOOS educational outreach materials, the continuing interaction between scientists and educators through the SEACOOS partnership have allowed new SEACOOS educator-scientist teams to emerge which are setting the stage for a series of collaborations on related ocean science subjects.
UR: http://www.seacoos.org
DE: 4899 General or miscellaneous
DE: 4560 Surface waves and tides (1255)
SC: Ocean Sciences [OS]
MN: 2004 AGU Fall Meeting