This Phase 2 CCLI project builds on a Phase 1 pilot study, which developed curricula material and equipment in support of laboratory-based teaching of rotating fluid dynamics in the context of meteorology, oceanography and climate.
Laboratories developed in Phase 1 are being implemented at five universities. Professors and students are exchanging and exploring ideas and methodologies in laboratory-based teaching at these universities. Expanded evaluation elements from Phase 1 are being used to determine the success of these laboratories and if they can be used by a wide community of institutions. A detailed evaluation plan is being followed to quantify implementation, pedagogy, dissemination, and sustainability.
The intellectual merit of the project is the exploration of how basic principles of rotating fluid dynamics, that play a central role in determining the climate of the planet, are best conveyed to students. In addition, this project is creating new ways to teach students how to move between phenomena in the real world, laboratory abstractions, theory and models.
The laboratory materials and associated curricula that are being developed will have a wide impact in the teaching of science at many levels in our universities and schools, not just in meteorology, oceanography and climate.
