DataStreme Earth's Climate System: Training Climate Education Resource Agents who Advance Climate Science Literacy

American Meteorological Society, Boston MA

Investigators

Abstract

The American Meteorological Society (AMS), with support from NSF and in partnership with the State University of New York's College at Brockport, is developing highly trained K-12 teachers, known as Climate Education Resource Agents (CERAs), who are responsible for advancing public climate science literacy and affecting curriculum change within their local schools and districts. A total of 40 CERAs are selected from 5 regions of the United States that are especially vulnerable to climate change impacts and have high minority populations. These regions include New York City/Long Island, south Florida, New Mexico, Arizona, and Alaska. CERAs are trained through the semester-long AMS DataStreme Earth's Climate System course and receive 3 graduate credits for course completion. Throughout the course, CERAs work in teams of two to develop a formal "Plan of Action" for local climate education outreach, which they then execute the following year. In order to have maximum community impact, CERAs foster relationships with regional climate centers and education programs. Each of the 5 regions select one of their CERA teams to represent their region's curriculum and public climate science literacy impacts and local partnerships at the January 2012 AMS Annual Meeting. The 40 CERAs trained through the proposed project will impact a minimum of 400 additional educators and 14,000 students within two years of their initial training.