AMS Climate Studies: Fostering Climate Science Literacy and Promoting Minority Participation in the Geosciences (Track 2)

American Meteorological Society, Boston MA

Investigators

Abstract

The American Meteorological Society (AMS) Education Program is partnering with Second Nature, administrator of the American College and University President's Climate Commitment (ACUPCC), to implement the AMS Climate Studies course at 100 minority-serving institutions (MSIs) over a five-year period. This project focuses on introducing and enhancing geoscience components of MSIs that are ACUPCC signatories and/or members of the Louis Stokes Alliances for Minority Participation (LSAMP). During the first four years of the project, AMS is conducting a weeklong AMS Climate Studies course implementation workshop for about 25 MSI faculty members per year. This workshop leverages the climate expertise of scientists from NOAA, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, University of Maryland, Howard University, George Mason University and other local climate educational and research institutions. Faculty participants are immersed in the course materials, receive presentations from high-level speakers, and are trained as change agents for their local institutions. Following the workshop, the faculty will work on their local campuses to expand geoscience curricula, thereby bringing change from within. They will offer AMS Climate Studies as an introductory geoscience course in the year following workshop attendance, and be encouraged to implement the AMS Weather Studies and AMS Ocean Studies courses. AMS is conducting follow-up meetings with faculty as they work toward institutional geoscience curricula change. The major outcomes of this project will be a large network of faculty trained to be change agents in their institutions, sustained offering of AMS undergraduate courses within MSIs, and the introduction of thousands of MSI students to the geosciences.