Geographic education is most effective when students actively participate by developing hypotheses, designing experiments, collecting and analyzing data and interpreting results. We are sampling environmental data for learning with micrometeorological stations deployed in a coastal plain, a south-facing slope, the crest of an east-west trending range, a north-facing slope, and a rain shadow. Fixed stations measure precipitation, temperature, humidity, wind speed and direction, radiation, and soil temperature and water content. These data are enabling students to calculate integrated variables such as evapotranspiration and soil water balance, while observing how these change seasonally and with elevation, coastal proximity, and aspect. Real-time data are transmitted via telemetry and made web-accessible to instructors, teaching assistants, and students. Lessons, laboratories and content for existing lower-division classes are being revised to incorporate these data. We are also developing new upper-division undergraduate courses, in which students will learn meteorological concepts in lectures, then be exposed to measurements in the lab, and finally participate in field deployment. Several of the towers are equipped with webcams so that students can visualize what is happening while analyzing real-time data.
Intellectual Merit: This project is producing data for a wide array of classes and is improving student understanding through inquiry-based learning. Undergraduates are heavily involved in data collection and analysis, and several undergraduate projects will be published. Exposing undergraduate students in lower-division courses to scientific practice, measurements and data interpretation, improves understanding of course topics, better prepares students for upper-division classes, and increases their interest in science and engineering careers.
Broader Impacts: This project is dramatically affecting Geographic education and serves as a model for education in spatial-temporal data collection, analysis, and interpretation. Through web-based data access, data are accessible to Santa Barbara City College and East Los Angeles College, a minority-serving institution.
