Instructor: Professor Dale Durran
606
Atmospheric Sciences Bldg., 543-7440
durrand@atmos.washington.edu
Meeting Time: 12:30 - 1:20 Wednesday, ATG 310C
The goal of this seminar is to answer the following question: "Can education and student learning in ATMS 101 be enhanced by changing the current format of four lectures and one one-hour quiz section per week?"
I propose that we attempt to answer this question by first answering a second question: "What kind of demonstrations or laboratory exercises can be effectively conducted for 101 students?"
At this time I am soliciting faculty to volunteer to give one of the presentations in this seminar. I hope that all past and future TAs will enroll in the seminar and attend the demonstrations. The idea will be to present a 35-45 minute instructional unit providing the students with laboratory exercises or demonstrations illustrating some aspect of atmospheric science, and to follow the presentation with feedback from the audience. Possible topics include: atmospheric pressure and pressure gradients, latent heat, cloud microphysics, interpretation of satellite photos, interpretation of weather radar, interpreting the clouds, rotating frames of reference, and atmospheric optics. This list is not complete, and other suggested topics would be welcome. Graduate students are welcome to volunteer to give a presentation, although I certainly hope that we will have good faculty participation in this endeavor.
At this point, I suggest that we not stipulate whether the material will be tailored for a traditional laboratory setting (with identical experiments performed by groups of two or three students), or whether the material will be presented as a demonstration for the entire quiz section, or something in between. Some units (such as satellite imagery and radar data interpretation) can be done with the aid of computers. I propose deferring the logistics of how to actually set up a 101 lab until we determine what activities we would really like to undertake as part of any revision. Each week's suite of demonstrations or laboratory exercises should last 35-45 minutes. The remaining time will be devoted to discussion and feedback from the seminar attendees. I would also like to solicit one volunteer to write up each week's demonstration along with any major points raised during the discussion. Perhaps one faculty member and one graduate student can collaborate to create, present and write-up each demonstration or lab. The write-up will document the lab for future use in ATMS 101, and possibly other classes.